New to the forum and New to drums.

Albireo893

Junior Member
Hi,
I'm a 25 year old male Living in Jakarta. I started drumming about a year ago, There's a long story about how i picked up but mainly from games and the love for music. I am currently studying drums at a Yamaha school. I came here to look for tips n tricks that could help me with some of my shortcomings and also to find new drum idols.

I am most interested in playing progressive type songs be it jazz,rock,classical,etc and my favourite drummers are mostly from japanese groups and bands mainly because I listen to mostly Japanese songs but I also listen to some english songs with well known drummers. Just to name some from the western side, Dave Weckl, Mike Portnoy, Andrea Vadrucci, Buddy Rich, Bill Bruford; And the Japanese side Akira kawasaki, Akira Jimbo, Kozo Suganuma, drummer from 96 (Composes metal-prog songs for Drum mania game series, their identity is a mystery:(..I think..).

So yeah, I would actually love it if I could be able to play like one of those drummers i've listed but I know it's still a long, looong way before I can begin to even learn anything like what they're playing. I still have to master the basics and rudiments n stuff. Well that's enough about me. Hope to be able to learn something from you guys and one day contribute in one way or another \o/ .
 
Welcome to the forum. You've come to the right place. You seem like you have a realistic frame of reference about needing to master the basics. Since I can't help spewing advice to new drummers.....don't make the mistake lots of new drummers do and gloss over the basics because they're "too easy". Lol. The basics are where the art of drumming lives, so don't think of them as easy. They are easy to initially learn, but mastering them is what separates the serious drummers from the ones who don't want to work that hard. Having a respect for the basics, and more importantly, logging in hundreds upon hundreds of hours practicing them will help you reach your goals faster than anything else. So practicing your basics is really the fast track, even if it doesn't feel that way.

In my experience, for me anyway, it's better to spend an hour practicing one thing than using that hour to gloss over 6 things. Develop the patience it requires to really get deep into an exercise. The first rudiment, the single stroke roll, as simple in concept as it is, is monumentally hard to play fast, clean and even. You could seriously do nothing but that rudiment for years. I have and I'm still not happy with my singles. I still practice them. Spend lots of time on singles and double strokes and flams. Everything you play will consist of those 3 strokes, generally speaking.

So be diligent and practice one thing deeply as opposed to covering so much ground that nothing is really ingrained. Oh and you NEED to practice to a metronome. Nothing can show you what even time sounds like, like a metronome.

Sorry for all the well intentioned advise.
 
Welcome....glad to have you!
 
I'll add to what Larry said about working with a metronome. Fine a comfortable speed and work your exercizes. When that becomes second nature, slow the tempo down until it becomes uncomfortable. That way you become aware of not just the notes you're playing but the space between the notes. It works for me.
 
Thanks for the welcome!


Welcome to the forum. You've come to the right place. You seem like you have a realistic frame of reference about needing to master the basics. Since I can't help spewing advice to new drummers.....don't make the mistake lots of new drummers do and gloss over the basics because they're "too easy". Lol. The basics are where the art of drumming lives, so don't think of them as easy. They are easy to initially learn, but mastering them is what separates the serious drummers from the ones who don't want to work that hard. Having a respect for the basics, and more importantly, logging in hundreds upon hundreds of hours practicing them will help you reach your goals faster than anything else. So practicing your basics is really the fast track, even if it doesn't feel that way.

In my experience, for me anyway, it's better to spend an hour practicing one thing than using that hour to gloss over 6 things. Develop the patience it requires to really get deep into an exercise. The first rudiment, the single stroke roll, as simple in concept as it is, is monumentally hard to play fast, clean and even. You could seriously do nothing but that rudiment for years. I have and I'm still not happy with my singles. I still practice them. Spend lots of time on singles and double strokes and flams. Everything you play will consist of those 3 strokes, generally speaking.

So be diligent and practice one thing deeply as opposed to covering so much ground that nothing is really ingrained. Oh and you NEED to practice to a metronome. Nothing can show you what even time sounds like, like a metronome.

Sorry for all the well intentioned advise.


Yeah i get what you mean. I cant exactly say i'm not one of those new drummers, I actually did want to skip all the boring stuff and skip straight to what I wanted to play because i've played more intense stuff from the games but eventually i gave up from trying to convince my teacher to teach me all those stuff and just went on with the course. He said he'd teach me at the end of the course after i'm done with the basics. Along the way i saw the importance of basics and am now practicing them.

As for the metronome, My number one problem is timing (cuz the game gave the timing for me) so yeah a metronome really helped a lot for the past year. Still far from perfect but i'm getti there. And no worries man, i've been told that many times already.

I'll add to what Larry said about working with a metronome. Fine a comfortable speed and work your exercizes. When that becomes second nature, slow the tempo down until it becomes uncomfortable. That way you become aware of not just the notes you're playing but the space between the notes. It works for me.

Yeah, i need to work on my slow tempos. Anything under 80bpm and i find it rather hard to concentrate. The slower it gets the worse I play, so When I went through the course involving slow bpms I take the longest time ever to pass it lol.
 
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Hello and welcome :)

That way you become aware of not just the notes you're playing but the space between the notes. It works for me.

That is spectacularly good advice, I'll take it!
 
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