12 Tips I Wish I Knew as a Beginner Drummer

hindsight is 20 20. so here are my 12 best tips i'd give to my beginner self if i could go back in time welcome to the non-glamorous drummer i believe that no matter who you are you can master the drums you can conquer the instrument when you are armed with the right know-how i believe this video will help you do just that we're going in reverse order here narrowing down from number 12 to number one which is my absolute favorite tip but of course these are all important number 12 nobody cares how fast you can play stop trying to impress people with your chops that's what i wish i could go back in time and just smack myself in the face and remind myself of that because i think we all understand that we're not supposed to impress people with our chops but deep down inside we have this desire to gain people's respect and to impress people we want people to look up to us as players and sometimes it's so hard to feel like we're doing that when we're not demonstrating our technical ability that's a tough one but once you realize and you get to the point where you know that playing musically and supporting the song and making the band sound better that's what's going to impress people then it's easier to gravitate into that it just took me too long to get there so know that don't try to impress people with your chops along those lines number 11 don't play fills from your hands play them from your ear from your mind from your head what do i mean by that well that means when it comes to an energetic part of the song where a fill needs to happen don't just blast into whatever your hands have practiced like oh i've been working on those double paradiddles i'm gonna play double pair that'll fill here that's generally a terrible idea especially if you're playing rock in jazz yeah you can play you know rudimental type fill but the fill still needs to be interesting and supportive and support that moment in the song and so you want to think through what sounds best there what feels best there what's actually going to support the music make the band sound better generally that's not a flurry of notes that might be a particular impactful type feel where we're hitting a rhythm and then we're making it interesting i've got other videos on this topic so i don't want to just leave you there but be sure to hit the description by the end of this video and check out other playlists and videos here on the channel that take you much more in depth than these quick tips number ten so this is a big one this is the more technical ergonomical one you will save your knee on a four hour gig if you sit further back from the kick number one and if you bounce the beater instead of burying it it took me too long to figure this out but when i was in college i was playing a lot of really long gigs late at night and it you kind of get into that territory of when you're so tired late at night you don't exactly use good posture you're getting tired and i was making that worse by sitting too close and so i was pressing really hard into the kick to bury the beater and a lot of that impact a lot of that energy was going up into my knee i would actually have a lot of right knee pain after the gig knee pain as a 20 year old is not a good thing and knee pain for anybody is not a good thing so you want to save your knees do that by sitting a little further back and give yourself some space and then by bouncing the beater instead of burying it that energy is leading out the beater rather than up your leg i know it's a controversial topic not everybody agrees with me on that i did make a video about it not too long ago that of course is in the description but i strongly encourage you to experiment with that give your leg some more space but a little further back even if it doesn't feel totally comfortable yet because it will and then practice bouncing the beater it'll save your knee number nine being able to play slow relaxed singles is extremely underrated and essential to playing drums relaxed fluidly and with good time actually the key to not rushing from a technical standpoint believe it or not so to unpack that a little bit real quick if you can play relaxed singles that means your sticks are moving in an arc motion very relaxed fluid motion from drum to drum which means you're less likely to rush when you're playing stiff it's you know you're constantly trying to get to the next drum you're afraid you're not going to get there in time but when you're playing with relaxed motion which you learn by practicing relaxed singles then your your sticks are traveling in this smooth arc and they're not getting where they're going too soon you're just relaxed and you're letting the laws of physics do their thing and the sticks are moving naturally which helps you stay relaxed up here which is good and it literally helps prevent you from rushing number eight this is an interesting one and i know not all of you are into jazz but this actually relates to every genre the swing in jazz actually comes from the quarter note make the time keeping steady and consistent and all else will follow so what that means is that you could just play just quarter notes on the right i have two and four and that's all you need to make that that swing swing you don't need the da da da that's kind of just an added extra a steady quarter note is what drives if those if those quarter notes aren't steady time wise and aren't steady dynamic wise if the listener can't feel that steady quarter note that they can relax into then it literally doesn't swing it doesn't matter what kind of other intricacy you play you got to have that steady and that actually applies to a lot of other groove types as well and some of the later points here today are going to touch on that also number seven record yourself whatever way possible and listen back and critique yourself this was actually something i did do at a fairly young age i had an electric drum set when i got started playing drums in middle school it was super easy to you know hit the record button or i think i had something else i would record my drums into it was easy to do because i could just do it through my headphones and so i would go back and listen and of course i knew my playing was sloppy and not great but by doing that as i progressed as i started taking lessons i would then record my acoustic kit later and i would practice playing songs and i would record myself playing songs even if it was just through a phone or an ipod or something and i would listen back to it so i could hear okay what sounds good what doesn't sound good that's how you grow that's how you critique yourself especially if you don't have the luxury of one-on-one lessons that's how you can actually get good feedback on your playing by listening to yourself and knowing what's up number six this is a huge one when you relax and you make an effort to listen to the music around you you listen to your surroundings you'll be much less tense and nervous on a gig i remember realizing this as a performance major in college i majored in percussion performance and so i had to play recital all the time playing mallet instruments that were very challenging to me and i remember playing a vibraphone solo it was a super melodious really cool piece but it was kind of scary because there were a lot of notes but i realized as i was playing it in the concert hall one afternoon practicing that if i just sat and i listened to it and i enjoyed the music and stopped worrying about whether or not i was gonna mess up and stopped worrying about the people who were gonna be sitting out here watching me and listening to me i found that when i could just soak myself in that sound of everything going on and just enjoy the music i was more relaxed i was less tense and less nervous i quickly realized that same thing applied to playing drums at gigs where if i just relaxed and listened to the music around me and enjoyed listening to the other good musicians around me making music it caused me to worry less about myself i wasn't so worried about what i sounded like or how i came across to the audience i was more interested in how does everything feel that's a huge turning point everybody needs to hit that turning point as a drummer when you get there your playing is going to become so much more mature i want you to get there now that's why i'm sharing this with you i want you to get to that point where you can immerse yourself in the music that you're playing in real time so that you can enjoy it and you can become sounds cheesy but become one with the music around you that you're playing because a good drummer blends in and plays what fits the song and supports the band not to mention we want to get rid of nervousness so it's always a good thing [Music] number five more energy does not equal more speed or more notes and vice versa so this kind of we can go a few directions digging into this point but basically what i mean is that you can build the energy in a song without speeding up and without actually playing more notes i wish i had realized this in high school that's why i was playing a lot of fast fills for my hands because i felt like if we were going to build the energy i needed to play a fast fill but sometimes things that are more spaced out and impactful can actually build more energy because they feel bigger think about a song where maybe there's a busier groove in the verse and then the groove opens up or simplifies in the chorus there's so many rock songs pop songs where that exact thing happens or maybe the drums even drop out a little bit in the chorus but the chorus feels so big and high energy it's not because the drums are playing more notes it's not even necessarily because the drums are playing louder it's because there's more space from the drums and that way other instruments are able to shine a little bit more but because of that more space things feel bigger and more open if you're playing a tight busy hi-hat group and then you open up into a simple ride groove literally everything feels bigger and more high energy and that's when we're playing less notes it's kind of counter-intuitive but think about that let that marinate in your mind because that's going to help you make that correlation number four number four this one kind of makes me chuckle uh spend some time actually figuring out how to tune your drums rather than just loading them up with moon gel or gaff tape or o-rings and stuffing the kick full of pillows and laundry uh i know this is one of those controversial points that's going to offend somebody because sometimes there is there is a time and a place for putting moon gentle stuff on your drums sometimes you want a dead sound you want to stuff the kick full of stuff but that shouldn't be your default you should always have a reason for whatever muffling you're using i know i've said that before if you've watched my videos you know that about me that i like to get my drums sounding good without any muffling and then put the muffling on there as an effect and then change the sound so spend some time figuring out how to tune your drums don't be afraid of messing them up if you're a beginner and you did just recently buy a drum set and maybe you kind of think you've figured out how to make them sound good don't be afraid to literally take the like loosen the heads all the way and then re-tune them you'll you'll always be able to find your way back to where they were and you're always going to stumble upon something new and interesting so don't keep your drums the same way don't settle for a mediocre tuning keep experimenting figure it out number three so this is one of the kind of these core beliefs that that i have that you've heard me share before if you've watched many of my videos and it's this spend just as much time sitting and listening to music through headphones as you do physically practicing your drums it's one thing to work the technical side of drums working on your hand technique in your coordination and everything but it's another to learn music and sometimes the more productive way to become a better musician on the drums isn't to play more music or practice along to more songs sometimes it's just to sit and listen to more songs so you can absorb what you're hearing and absorb the drum parts on the record do that before you ever play along to a song and so sit down and just listen to music through headphones that's a great way to pick up on stuff you've never heard before and really notice things in recordings that maybe you haven't heard from just listening in the car so doing that is going to help increase your maturity i didn't start doing that while i was in college i would listen to music sometimes through headphones in high school but i was busy just playing along and jamming out and i wasn't paying attention to what was actually happening on the record so make sure you're not missing out on those details really take the time to appreciate the thought that went into creating a great recording number two a great snare sound has less to do with the snare itself and more to do with how you hit it and yes tuning does come into play also but the number one factor in a snare sound is how you hit it how hard you hit it where you hit it that's even more important than the tuning for instance if you're going for a low beefy sound and you're playing rim shots you might not actually get as beefy of a sound as you want because the crack of the rim shot is choking out the drum versus if you just smack it in the center let the stick bounce off there's your beefy sound or maybe you've got it tuned a little higher and you want like a just rock and roll loud crack but if you're not hitting it hard enough or you're not playing rim shots that's not going to happen you've got to hit it hard and you've got to hit the rim shots to get that sound doesn't matter how you tune it you won't get the crack unless you play the rim shot or maybe you've got an annoying ring coming from your snare that could be because you're not actually hitting it in the center if you go just an inch or two off the center of your drum there's going to be a lot of ringing and it's not going to be a focused sound most of the time you don't want that kind of ringy sound so pay attention to how you're hitting your drum i wish i had known that a long time ago so that i could have focused on getting a solid backbeat it's so important to have a good solid backbeat and rock playing whether it's soft or whether it's loud it needs to be consistent and so make sure you're getting that good snare sound pay attention to how you hit all right number one uh this is my absolute favorite point this became the biggest breakthrough turning point in my playing and it didn't happen until i was near the end of my college career and so i wish i could go back and just teach all of this stuff to myself when i was in high school great feel isn't just the result of great time it's equally the result of good dynamics good kit mixing and good consistency good dynamic consistency so this is kind of a big point so i want to break it down a little more and there's also a video that i did a while back going in depth with this you can check out in the description [Music] feel is something that always eluded me people would talk about pocket and feel and groove and everything and i never really could figure out okay why does my playing my group not sound as good or feel as good as a pro drummer's feel and so eventually i gradually learn these things and somebody explained them to me that good dynamics is actually maybe even more important than good time if you're playing a consistent backbeat the groove feels good even if the time isn't perfect go listen to an old zeppelin record and you'll hear that they didn't record to a click but everything felt great because bonham mixed his kit well the cymbals were the right volume next to the drums you could hear everything right and he was you know playing these hard back beats that were consistent and even so it didn't matter that the time wasn't perfect the band was tight and there was group that's what creates feel good dynamics creates feel you've got to understand that yes we want to play with good time but good dynamics is equally if not more important this is kind of the the other side of what i was saying about swing a minute ago how those steady quarter notes drive swing well a steady backbeat and steady kick you know powerful kick that's a consistent dynamic within the framework of the group that's what drives a rock feel if there's suddenly a weak backbeat or they're inconsistent backbeats the listener can't relax and it feels like your playing is out of time even if it's not check out a video i did a while back on on this where i compare my playing to a computer's playing and we talk about which feels better and what actual differences are between them it's pretty interesting i think you'll enjoy it so that's in the description below hey everyone thanks so much for watching if you're new to the channel be sure to subscribe before you go and also download the free e-guide in the description my gift to you it's going to help you out a bunch i believe that no matter who you are you can master the drums when you have the right know-how and the free guide below is just going to help you further with doing that with conquering this instrument thanks for watching know that you can do this stay non-glamorous everyone

Channel: Stephen Clark

Views: 890,294

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Id: gHIZELwH49k

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020