I am absolutely terrible at counting

Wow. I count EVERTHING! I do have a feel for eight bar phrases. But it took a while to get there. If I didn't count while soloing, I would have trouble when the band comes back in. Although trading fours has become easy for me. It's practice, practice, practice. Counting is a learnable skill.
 
brentcn said:
Counting is a lot easier to learn if you have someone else to count out loud with you. This way, you can copy the other person in real time.

It’s not necessary or advisable to count all of your playing at full speed. And if you start that way, you’re certainly going to be frustrated. Often, we can play much faster than we can speak. Counting aloud is a tool for learning, getting better command of new material and rhythms, and keeping track through the occasional tough section of a chart. But it can also really deepen your sense of timing, and allow you to learn new things faster — IF you put some time into developing counting as its own skill first.

Someone mentioned counting the 16ths aloud while playing beats and fills, and this is a VERY worthwhile exercise. Of course, you’ll need to simplify your drumming considerably at first. You mentioned that you sometimes have trouble counting ahead of a fill. Take a simple 4/4 beat, with a full of two 16th notes (the “and ah”) abs count it as you play. Then add a 16th note to the fill, and start it on the “e”. Continue adding 16th notes to the fill, one at a time, until you have practiced fills starting at every subdivision in the measure. It may take a month or two until you’re improvising and playing and counting things nearer the apex of your abilities.

At the same time, grab a copy of Syncopation and — before you play a single note — start counting the exercises. The accent exercises are especially good. To practice counting in 6/8, you can use the triplet accent pages. Just use your voice and the metronome for a few days. Another great book for this purpose is The Modern Reading Text in 4/4 by Louie Bellson (no 6/8 exercises though).

In addition, I think there are some good 6/8 materials in A Fresh Approach to the Snare Drum — can someone confirm this?

In essence, you’ll want to develop your ability to count as a separate skill, at the very beginning. Then add the hands. Finally, you can move on to counting while playing the whole kit.
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All of that-- get a book, open to page 1, count the rhythms. Syncopation is good, or the beginner snare drum books by Mitchell Peters, Burns/Feldstein, of Vic Firth. I like Peters the best. If you don't know how to count the rhythms correctly, get a teacher. You can learn to do it in 1-4 lessons.

I just got done ripping apart the Bellson book-- or rather figuring out why I never use it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone just learning how to count and read. Or most other people, actually.
 
I would suggest setting the metronome to quarters and playing every common subdivision to it. Then set it to eighths and repeat. Then set it to 16ths, blah blah blah.

Eventually you will be able to comfortably and seamlessly shift between any combination of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, or 16 without issue.

Do it with each hand individually as well. Make time your bitch.
 
here is an exercise we used to do in drum corps and marching band that helped us execute all of the subdivisions against the quarter note pulse in our feet. This really hhelped me solidify my counting!! I use this with my high school drumline as well

fttort - Score.jpg
fttortpg2- Score.jpg

it always helped me to see the quarter note pulse in the bottom line adn how it divided the rhyrhms in the top line up


- you can take each 2 measure phrase and rep thhose alone to develop each count situation
- you can do just the duple (even) divisions
- you can do just the triple divisions
- you can do just the 5's and 7's

you can also alter how you organize the stickings and the feet, as I notated in the first line; I do all kinds of variations now
 
Playing by “feel” is subconscious counting…I have the problem of analyzing/reckoning the subconscious with my conscious: when counting, does it feel right? How can I tell it’s ok? Then count to the song to check by ignoring the temptation to “feel” the timing.
 
If you shop around you can find a metronome that gives a human voice stating the time count...my Bose does for usual time sigs as well as some not so common sigs.

Set it running and try to keep an ear on it while practicing.
 
After re-reading my post above I thought I should mention that counting is a tool like any other...choosing its usage is what is important...and keeping that decision in your tool box is essential THOUGH I find that rote counting sets a frame work for your playing that impedes creative exploration...as you tend to see your performance space as relative to the box described by the count as opposed to the pulse beneath the count.

I would also point out that 'counting' is not the same as 'tracking the pulse'. "Counting" defines a superstructure onto the pulse by giving an association between 'counts' and pulse phrases where 'tracking' the pulse simply gives you a way to view the pulse itself without saying(enforcing?) where you are in pulse grouping.

Not tracking the pulse is rarely helpful in my opinion where not tracking the count can be.

Develop counting with an eye on not becoming dependent on it...just like metronome usage. I would even argue that there is no aspect of playing that should be without consideration of its existence and under your control enough to be dismissed or included at will.(free time explorations often yield me great ideas i would not have otherwise found).
 
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Get a teacher to take you through Syncopation. Count out loud while playing the exercises. You don't have a counting problem. I mean, you can say, "One, two, three, four," correct? Okay, no counting problem. You have a counting-while-playing-problem. Very common if you haven't had training in it. Start simple, then get more complex. It's not hard. It's tedious. Keep it up and it will eventually become automatic. COUNT OUT LOUD.
 
Have you tried not counting? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying skip that process entirely, but try to change the task to something that you can do, and then turn that into counting.
I watched a video some time ago with I can't remember who but I want to say a drummer who was playing with Frank Zappa at the time of recording? either way someone pretty capable. He was saying he always sings a song in his head.
If you watch Tabla players, they have the whole rule of "never play faster than you can verbalise" and every "note" or, in tabla they're almost more like "chords", as you're playing combinations, but every combo has a name and you learn to say them before you play them, quite literally, a tabla show will be equally vocal and drummed, with everything that's going to be played being told to the audience before hand.
I sometimes resort to beat-boxing while playing, not that I'm any good, but playing roughly what I'm beat-boxing, even if my voice is a fairly non-distinct mumble, I know what the sound means even if a listener wouldn't recognize it.

Once you have any of them, can't you basically switch out the words? Bah Bah Black Sheep.......One Bah Black Sheep, etc. It's all about tricking the mind into doing what it doesn't want to do. The words of counting don't matter, the point is to internalise the pulse.

Just to add - this isn't to say don't count at all, I wouldn't contradict everyone's advice, I just mean to have some sessions or exercises trying to explore and experiment with alternatives to help get over whatever mental hurdle you're up against.
 
I never count while I'm playing. I just play fills that feel good and keep going.

Don't sweat it.
 
When I was in school, when they found out that I wanted to be a drummer, they only taught me to count to four. 1,2,3,4.
 
If you have a desire to get good at anything e.g. counting you have to start at a level where you're not terrible and have a step by step progressive plan. I won't happen in a day, but with a routine it doesn't take that long either. Maybe a couple of months.
 
Coordinating that fifth limb, the mouth, isn't easy by any means.
It's only important if you need it.
But, adding that to your bag of skills will absolutely help everything else.
As others have said, start small and build. If your fills are played smoothly and in time, consider yourself lucky and you have the luxury of learning to count over and through that at your own pace.
There's a middle ground where your vocalizing the actual fills "boom, dah, dah, boom, dah, dah, spish, crash, etc..." and that can produce even better results sonically than counting out the numbers. But if you're going into the fills without the sonic idea and without counting I find that's when things can get off the rails.
 
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