Practice and creativity

Hey guys, I have been playing drums for around 6 months now and have just started getting serious about it. I've been practicing for around 5 hours a day just doing things like learning jazz( like the past two days) , practicing rudiments, learning songs, and independence exercises ect. But something that keeps on nagging me is the fact that what if im learning all these things and i'll just become uncreative and wont be able to create anything on my own? Which basically is what music is about right? creating your own thing. I don't wanna be that kid from high school who could play every song ever on his guitar but cant jam because he cant improvise.

So does practicing to much or learning to many things destroy your creativity? Or is it the exact opposite?

I just jam every Saturday with my friend so i can learn to improvise and everything and he tells me i'm really creative with my fills and beats but would that even be enough to stop the loss of creativity if you really did lose any from learning to much?

I think if anything having more technique would allow you to be more creative by applying the different patterns that you have learned around the set in your own way. But definitely the best way to be creative is with practicing in a band with others.

TrueCarpet said:

So does practicing to much or learning to many things destroy your creativity? Or is it the exact opposite?

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This one's easy mate.........the exact opposite.

The more you learn, the more you can do, pure and simple.

I don't think there's any correlation between practicing and loss of creativity. Practicing is very important if you want to be in a band and want to stay in one. The creative part comes from really engaging your brain in playing the drums. If you're really fixated with drumming and music in general, it'll show in your enthusiasm, uniqueness, and appropriateness of your playing - basically, your drumming "personality."

If your brain isn't all that engaged and you find yourself phoning in your parts or just trying to shoehorn in the latest chop you learned in a song that doesn't require it, then yeah, you might turn out like one of those guitar players who can do everything except create. I would also keep in mind that there are a lot of guitar players who learn to "shred" (for lack of a better term) that never show an interest in songwriting. They're more interested (generically) in finding out what part of the song their solo goes in than about the song itself.

To avoid the same fate as a drummer, be curious about the songwriting part and maybe pick up a guitar or bass and educate yourself about that process. It's also really fun and will help you understand how best to put drums to music.

Practice in and of itself does not harm creativity. But it won't necessarily make it any better either, unless you also happen practice being creative. Yes, for many (read: most) people, being creative requires practice too. It's a muscle that needs exercise to get better at it or maintain it.

(no, this should be taken as an indication that I think the brain is full of actual muscles.)

My drum teacher used to tell me "with drumming there is nothing new under the sun" being creative can be playing chops someone else has already done but re-arranging them in a new way so they have never been heard before together that way..so therefore learn as much as you can to make your "creative" drumming have more options..

Practicing in itself won't make you less creative, but time spent practicing rudiments and technique is time not spent playing with other musicians.

You won't get less creative, but you may find your playing skill and technique accelerates beyond your level of listening and improvising, so you'll need to do that more to keep up.

Its about striking a balance. I think i'm a better listener and improviser than I am a technically skilled player, which has suited me fine playing with bands and jamming with people. But it means what i need to spend time doing is learning skills and technique to expand the possibilities of what i can physically do on the drums.

Thanks guys for all the replies

So yeah i guess the moral of the story is it wont, but you need to have the perfect balance of practice and jamming? And the more you know the more you can play?

You don't need balance, you just need to do both as much as you possibly can.

toddbishop said:

You don't need balance, you just need to do both as much as you possibly can.

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Well, you do need a balance of some kind and you will have one whether you try or not — even if it is a balance of zero. Just trying to do it all without any analysis or consideration may, by chance, provide the best results. But why leave it all up to chance? What sort of balance ends up working for you isn't something anyone but you can determine, but at least you can determine it.

TrueCarpet said:

So yeah i guess the moral of the story is it wont, but you need to have the perfect balance of practice and jamming? And the more you know the more you can play?

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I agree with Todd, there isn't a "perfect balance" per se. It's all practice and it'll all help you become a better player. There is no substitute for drilling your hands and feet and working on technicality.......but making music with others is one of the best ways to learn musicality IMHO. Remember, just because you can, doesn't always mean you should. Playing with others is a great way to learning to know the difference.

For the most part, the ability to listen to other players and interact tastefully and appropriately is what will get you hired.....not how many singles you can play in a minute.

Do 'em both.....as often as you can.