Practicing less and improving more??

[ColdFusion]

SomeBadDrummer said:

"It will pay off, no one ever got worse practicing. You are going to be better than you believe."

Yes yes yes. This is an important thing for you to hear. Whatever conundrums you have about your own potential to learn drums, if you simply don't quit, just a year from now you will have real momentum and a refreshed perspective about practicing.
As I mentioned above, it will seem to you that your improvement is coming to you in agonizingly subtle shades. But we live in a marvelous era when you can pretty easily record your progress. A years progress is a trip to see if you capture it in a before and after video or audio. I kind of wish I had documented my progress in this way.

 

[TMe]

I like the idea of having lessons periodically.

Find a teacher and take three or four lessons. With a lot of teachers, that will give you most of what they have to offer. After the first few lessons, they just have you working through a book or three, which you can do on your own if you like the book(s).

If you can do that repeatedly, you'll get a critique of your playing each time and a few specific suggestions, which can be really helpful. If you can do it with different teachers, you might get fresh ideas each time. If you're lucky, you'll find a teacher you want to stick with.

 

[doggyd69b]

After messing around here and there over the last couple of years i've recently started to try to take the drums more seriously.... for the past 8 months or so i have been practicing about 2-3 hours a day 5-6 days a week.

A typical practice would look like this....

During the day: half an hour warm up (basic sticking exercises/working on hand technique.... singles, doubles, single paradiddle) then an hour to an hour and a half working on grooves and fills I want to learn.

Evening: An hour to an hour and a half working on sticking exercises and technique.... same ones I do as a warm up.

I tried to be as regimented as possible but didn't use a metronome as much as I should.... sticking done to a metronome always but grooves and fills were only done to a metronone 60-70% of the time.

I had made decent progress but was finding myself getting bored and was overall frustrated with the progress i was making compared to the time i was putting in.... i often felt like I was getting worse or just not improving at all. For example my double stroke roll was improving nicely but then at a certain point i would have to drop back 20-40 bpm to play it cleanly and it still wasn't as clean as it was the week before at higher tempos.... it felt like my hands were suddenly tired and wouldn't do what my brain told them to do anymore.

So, after some advice from this forum I recently decided to just play for the fun of it for a while and not be so particular about all the tiny details and.... I think I'm improving more and more quickly than before? I warm up and then just play, I usually set the metronome to start off with then once I've settled in I turn it off and try to just groove and enjoy it. A typical practice now is more like an hour during the day and an hour in the evening if I feel like it, and it's over all much less regimented. And I always take the weekend off. I don't try to do these marathon sessions of playing the same groove over and over again anymore, I just play until I feel satisfied or my mind wants to move on to something else.

I've consistently recorded elements of my practice and I can hear a clear difference in the quality of my playing since I've a) been less strict on myself and b) stopped practicing as much.

I'm starting late at 39 and my overall goal is to just be able to play some rock and funk well.... no ambitions to play out or perform. Just playing for fun but I do want to be able to play the stuff I do play well.

Hearing all the stories of my favourite drummers playing all day every day in their early years I feel like I need to put in extra work to try and catch up somewhat.... but i'm finding a less is more approach is working better for me.

Anyone else experience this when they were learning?

Am I putting a limit on my own potential by not putting in the extra time? Is it something that will pay off down the road in a way that I'm unaware of in the early stages of my journey?

Or will practicing until I'm satisfied with my progress and enjoying the process yield the same results in the long run?

Sorry for the long convoluted question in advance.

Like someone suggested earlier, maybe have a teacher look at your technique every so often if you don't want to actually have lessons just so that he (or she) can correct any wrong technique applications you might be doing.
It is good that you practice but like you also said find time to just relax and have fun, yes, you will make mistakes but you will notice that playing that particular song that is now difficult (or has a difficult part) suddenly starts to become easier and easier until you have mastered it and start to move on to something more challenging. (That is how I learned and still do, I constantly try to play stuff that is hard for me and when it gets easy I move on). I tried to practice rudiments ( I got to a decent speed/execution but I stopped because I have never been able to use any of them in music I played). I have used parts of some rudiments in some music but that was really not benefiting my (notice I say MY) playing at all, while learning from music I liked was and still is. (I also never practiced more than once a day and a max of maybe 4 hrs if I was having too much fun.
Also you mentioned that your goal is to play stuff you enjoy but not to perform, that should be even more reason to be less regimented and more fun. (Unless performing is somewhere in the future goals). You know what you want to accomplish and how you get there is entirely up to you, but I suggest setting some short term and long term goals (realistic ones) and work on that but don't obsess with little things, primarily focus on having fun, if you are not having fun playing drums stop and return later with a clear head. if you dread practicing some exercise, modify or replace with something that works better for your enjoyment, improvement will be significantly faster if you have fun.

 

[ColdFusion]

I don't want to distract from the OP's Q, but I wanted to share an artifact from my earlier anecdote.

These are the first jazz sticks that I bought after re-commiting myself to the drum kit.

That chewing on the one stick and the missing tip on the other was caused by nothing more brutal than triplet paradiddles (Tony Williams style) and single strokes on the snare drum.

(For the photo I'm just using a black rubber pad as backdrop).

The bow and bell of my ride cymbal, and the rim of the snare did most of the work on those little hickory sticks.
I was pretty proud when that tip finally came off. Now it's really time to get a new pair of sticks!

You know you're really shedding when there's literally wood chips under you snare drum.

So like, just practice until your sticks fall apart, lol.

 

[Drum&Gym]

I didn’t start drumming until my early 50s, so also quite late. I had a couple of teachers and weekly lessons over the first 2 years. No criticism of my teachers whatsoever, they got me started and taught me a lot, but I never felt pushed or challenged. I did a lot of stuff on my own and practiced a lot, to the point that I didn’t feel like I was getting enough from the lessons. I would say to you, to find a teacher, but be clear and open about where you are in all aspects of your drumming and what you would like to do and learn.

As it turned out the lessons had to stop anyway because I had to move around with my work and subsequently my practice reduced other than continue with regular pad work, and only on my kit at weekends back home. Around 5 years later I had another teacher for about 6 months, I explained to him, and he could see clearly that I had developed a reasonable level of technique and ability but was unable to apply this directly to playing to music and completing songs. The lessons then were all about listening and playing along to music, together with any technique flaws or exercises necessary that came up, which was exactly what I needed.

Another 2 years later to present I have continued to practice and have fun generally, learning and playing the songs I like, at the same time pushing myself playing to music of increasing difficulty. This highlights what I need to be practicing and is how I measure my progress. I would also say to you to know when to move on, because what you are struggling with now over a long period of time, you will come back to later and play more easily because you have progressed elsewhere. It’s not a case of giving up at all, but that you have devoted enough time, and this would now be better spent learning something else. This has really worked for me and helped me improve more, together with consistent core practice of rudiments, and finger and bass drum technique. Like you say, I am less strict on myself and just want to feel satisfied with my progress relative to the time I put in. I like and want to play rock music well, but also try other genres because of the different techniques involved and musical crossover which I feel has also been very beneficial. I also have no real ambition to perform, but I’d like to think I had to ability to do if I ever wanted. Maybe one day……

Good luck with your drumming.

 

[jimb]

As above really plus one other thing. Pick a fav tune...something where you know the producer probably insisted on a solid groove, then play it and as you do maybe add the odd adornment here and there on the hats or snare but keep them short and tight....Ive been doing this and my general groove and musicality has leapt......Music is 95% percent groove and not how fast a fill can be played. I often think we get hung up on this and that technique.

 

[Jeff Graw]

So, after some advice from this forum I recently decided to just play for the fun of it for a while and not be so particular about all the tiny details and.... I think I'm improving more and more quickly than before? I warm up and then just play, I usually set the metronome to start off with then once I've settled in I turn it off and try to just groove and enjoy it. A typical practice now is more like an hour during the day and an hour in the evening if I feel like it, and it's over all much less regimented. And I always take the weekend off. I don't try to do these marathon sessions of playing the same groove over and over again anymore, I just play until I feel satisfied or my mind wants to move on to something else.

Everything being equal, your original regimented approach to practice is superior.

The thing is, things aren't equal. You learn faster when you're having fun. Ideally, you're always having fun, and always playing at the edge of your abilities.

Too often, having fun is in a state of tension with structured practice. As you maximize one, the other suffers.

With that in mind, you can try to develop strategies. One thing that works well for me is finding a song the gets me energized, making a loop out of it, and playing around with the playback speed while practicing a few specific things in the context of jamming out. This works especially well with rhythmically complex songs. One such song I used was Nate Smith's Skip Step, where I was able to work on my odd time, then fill flow (playing nothing but fills over time sigs like 17/8 is a great way help you find the 1 in complex situations), as well as hand speed (started at around -15% tempo, and now I'm clocking in the one handed-16th notes at around +8%), and probably more.

Not saying that my approach is ideal for you, but it's an example of how you may be able to come up with a strategy.

 

[Odd-Arne Oseberg]

Deliberate practice and recovery both mentally and physically to let things mature will have greater effect than just playing all day with no plan for sure. When you do that, you are usually getting effect from the practice even if you're not physically practicing. You may also come up with a constantly inmproved way to spend your practice time when away.

It is a bit more complicated and there's room for both depending.

When people talk about crazy hours of practicing we're usually talking about everything that learning to play entails.

If your goal is to be able to play at your top level for a full show or four sets, you still have to work up to that at some point. Just depends what your goals are. There will be a difference in what conditioning you need depending on if it's Freddy Fender or Meshuggah, though.

Can you keep the quality up all the way through the show?

Learning new things and general practice isn't necessarily the same as preparing for a gig, though. It just depends on your current situation interests and needs.

I can say that I learned pretty quickly playing in orchestras as a kid that playing a rather short show was a lot more demanding than several hours of rehearsals with lots of breaks and talking.

 

[dajazz]

all very very good comments, it really depends on what level you are and what you are trying to achieve.
I found learning a bit of piano really helped me to relate better to the melody and ergo rush or drag less, again it depends, perhaps it's not ideal if you want to play blast beats lol

 

[AdamI]

Deliberate practice and recovery both mentally and physically to let things mature will have greater effect than just playing all day with no plan for sure. When you do that, you are usually getting effect from the practice even if you're not physically practicing. You may also come up with a constantly inmproved way to spend your practice time when away.

It is a bit more complicated and there's room for both depending.

When people talk about crazy hours of practicing we're usually talking about everything that learning to play entails.

If your goal is to be able to play at your top level for a full show or four sets, you still have to work up to that at some point. Just depends what your goals are. There will be a difference in what conditioning you need depending on if it's Freddy Fender or Meshuggah, though.

Can you keep the quality up all the way through the show?

Learning new things and general practice isn't necessarily the same as preparing for a gig, though. It just depends on your current situation interests and needs.

I can say that I learned pretty quickly playing in orchestras as a kid that playing a rather short show was a lot more demanding than several hours of rehearsals with lots of breaks and talking.

Freddy Fender sounds almost like a pejorative when you say it like that. There's nothing wrong with Freddy Fender.... SRV is a Freddy Fender, Dave Gilmour is a Freddy Fender.... Jimi Hendrix is a Freddy Fender.

Nothing wrong with Freddy Fender.

 

[AdamI]

all very very good comments, it really depends on what level you are and what you are trying to achieve.
I found learning a bit of piano really helped me to relate better to the melody and ergo rush or drag less, again it depends, perhaps it's not ideal if you want to play blast beats lol

I play guitar so I think that has definitely helped me understand some of the fundamentals of music, it's structure and how it applies to the drums.

And yeah, the advice here has been great. I seem to have settled into to a less rigid practice routine and I continue to see results. I took a little bit from the practice hard all the time crowd and a little bit from the have fun crowd and combined them in a way that works for me. More happy, less frustrated and making gradual but good progress.