James Demlow, How to Practice: Save Your Minutes

1 year ago

How to Practice: Save Your Minutes

There is a quote about money I have always liked: “Save you pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves”. I like this quote a lot for two reasons;

1. I have pennies. Lots of them. I’m also pretty sure I can get more. This leads me to believe I’ll be rich some day.

2. It helps to illustrate a very basic aspect of practicing the drums.

We’ll leave my future billions out of this article and concentrate on how this quote can do wonders for your personal practice. We’re all busy people nowadays. Work, School, Gigs, Kids, Pets, Parents, Yoga, Sports Center, etc. We don’t always have hours to practice our instrument, and sometimes we don’t even have a single hour! While I think there are many people who could be practicing a lot more instead of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation re-runs, and also some people who need to loosen up their schedules a bit, we can all relate to one simple idea; “I wish I had more time to practice”.

This is where that quote comes in. As it relates to practicing drums, I like to use the quote “Save your minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves”. What the heck does that mean? It means that if you could practice for just a few minutes every single day, you would see a tremendous amount of growth in your drumming, no matter what your skill level, style, age, or science fiction television taste.

Most people don’t believe this when I tell them, and the reason they don’t believe it is because they have been inundated with stories of drummers who wood shed for 8 hours a day for months on end, emerging with long beards and a sensitivity to light. People believe that in order to be successful at the drums, you have to practice to the point where you can’t possibly have a life, so why even bother?

While it is true that practicing for hours on end for days on end will make you very skilled, it IS NOT the way the majority of proficient, talented, and more importantly, WORKING drummers choose to live. You CAN become really good at the drums, AND even practice for great lengths of time, AND still have a life.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t like one of those plans where you lose weight while you sleep. It’s more like 8 minute abs (except this actually works).

Start by practicing for 10 minutes per day. Just 10, no more, no less. That’s it? Yup. Here’s why: you’re going to do it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Weekends, Holidays, Mardi Gras, whatever. It’s the everyday part that is most important. The reason why is that after about 21 days or so, you will develop the habit of practicing. You won’t have to remind yourself or make time for it, because it will simply be part of your routine. Once that happens, you can go to 15 minutes, then 20, and so on until you are getting an hour everyday. An hour everyday of quality practice time is HUGE. It can make a world of difference after a few months, or even just one year. You can take it as far as you want, but if you start with a solid foundation of consistent practice with quality material, your playing will hit warp factor 9.

I swear to you, no more Star Trek after that last one.

Pennies add up to dollars, and minutes add up to hours. Save them both, and wealth and happiness is sure to follow.

I hope this really helps you with all of your percussion endeavors. Feel free to e-mail me at JDemlow@gmail.com if you have any questions. I would love to help!

How to Practice: Save Your Minutes

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