Posts tagged "practice"
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1 year ago
This is a short video of me playing the five stroke roll from slow to fast. Feel free to play along! Enjoy, and thanks for watching!
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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!
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1 year ago
This is a video of me using a double stroke check pattern from the vic firth website as a warm up. Feel free to play along! Enjoy!
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1 year ago
How to Practice: Setting Goals
In order to be able to acquire, polish, or even master any techniques on the drum set, you must begin with practice. This is a pretty obvious, if not totally obvious statement. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? I’ll give you a hint, it is not a plane and then a taxi. There is however one exception that I take with the above statement, and that is that you must BEGIN with practice. Practice is a crucial element to any musician’s development, but I feel like many drummers of varying backgrounds and levels of development miss another critical element that I feel needs to exist before a person even picks up a pair of sticks.
Goals
In order for any practice, even the most basic practice, to have a truly positive and propelling effect, you have to have goals. Even one teenie, tiny goal gives a person enough direction to accomplish amazing things in a short amount of time. I know this may all seem very obvious, but many people come in to my lesson studio with what they think are goals:
“I want to be a better drummer”
“I want to play faster fills”
“I want to play an awesome solo”
“I want to impress chicks”
That last one by the way requires switching instruments from drums to guitar. All of the sentences above are fine statements and even worthwhile pursuits, but they ARE NOT goals. They are wishes, hopes, maybe even dreams, but not goals. A goal is something specific, tangible, it can be measured, and above all else, it can be clearly pictured by the goal setter.
“I want to play clean double stroke rolls at 120 bpm”. Now that is a goal.
I don’t want to fall in to the self-help abyss of goal setting and time management in this article, because I might not find my way out. So here is a quick checklist on how to set proper goals, so that you can practice in a way that gets you the best results in the shortest amount of time:
- Do I have a goal?
- Now that I have a goal, is it specific and can it be measured?
- How long do I think it will take me to achieve my goal?
- What benefits will I have gained once this goal is attained?
- Will this goal help me achieve other goals?
Remember, choose goals that will take you where you want to go. If you want to join your high school jazz band, don’t practice blast beats for three hours a day. Also, make sure you re-evaluate as you go. If you need to tweak your goals, that’s ok. The important thing is to keep things concrete, clear, and consistent (and any other alliterative happy phrases that you feel help).
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1 year ago
Here is a video of me using a warm up for Single Strokes from Vicfirth . com. 16ths, 16th Note Triplets, then 32nd notes. Silver to Platinum level. Feel free to play along! Thanks for viewing!
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2 years ago
Teaching: How do I get my students to practice?
No matter what instrument you teach, finding ways to motivate your students to practice is probably one of the biggest issues for private instructors. Many instructors can get frustrated, or even personally offended when their students don’t practice. It seems like a waste of time for everyone involved. What’s more, you can feel a lot of pressure from parents who don’t see their child putting in a lot of hours, and they in turn will feel like they are wasting their money on your lessons.
So the question is “How do I get my students to practice?”
For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that you are dealing with two types of students; those that don’t practice, but still manage to make progress, and those that don’t practice and are stalling out.
For the first group, it’s important to keep in mind that kids today (yeah, I said it) have a lot going on. Imagine a 15 year old that has a full day of school with three hours of homework every night, football practice after school, driver’s ed and a part time job, not to mention the pull of friends, girls, and Playstation 3. You as a drum instructor can be seen as asking a lot of this kid if you say, “I want you to practice an hour everyday”. This is a kid who really wants to play the instrument, but the thought running through his head is:
“If I can’t give it enough attention, then I’ll just suck, so what’s the point?”
These are the kids who like to practice, or would like it if they had more time and more motivation.
The other group is comprised of the students who don’t want to practice. These are the kids (or adults for that matter) who just don’t like practicing, no matter what the circumstances. “Why are they playing drums then” I hear you asking. More on that issue in future articles, but for right now, let’s assume you can turn them around.
It actually doesn’t matter which type of student you’re dealing with, because the solutions are almost the same (with some minor variations). First things first though, let’s talk about what you DO NOT want to do:
Don’t tell them to practice more
For some of you this may seem obvious. For others, this seems like the worst idea ever. The reason you don’t tell them to practice more is because they will take it like you’re giving them an order, and no one responds well to that. Even if you manage to threaten or scare them in to practicing, it’ll be temporary until they quit. You’re goal is to motivate them, not make them do it.
Don’t try to sell them on the idea of practice
They already know the idea that practice=good, and no practice=bad. That isn’t why they are not practicing. Telling them a long list of reasons why practice is good is asking to be tuned out like Charlie Brown’s teacher, and it isn‘t motivating. They don’t want to hear your reasons.
Don’t make them feel bad for not practicing
Never, ever, ever, purposely make a student feel bad, for any reason. Period.
So, now that we know what not to do, let’s talk about the ways that will turn your ENTIRE roster of students in to dedicated, and diligent drummers.
Tell them to play everyday
Especially if you are dealing with a beginner. It is more important that they play everyday, because that will create a positive attitude toward the instrument. Tell them you don’t care what they play, or even for how long, as long as they are playing as much as possible. They will naturally progress up to a point, and then ask you for help with the materials you have asked them to work on (not told them to practice).
Ask them what they want to work on
If you have an established student that is not very motivated, you need to discover what does motivate them. Have you tried asking? I know. It’s nuts. You just ask them what they want to learn, then show them how to do it. It’s crazy. It also works. Even if you feel like they should be learning rudiments instead of death metal, it is their lesson, and their time with you is best spent in a positive way. If you show them what they want to know, I guarantee you will be able to work in your materials.
Make them feel really good when they do something right
This is basic conditioning. Anytime they do something correct, make a really, really big deal about it. Not a patronizing, pat on the head, but a genuine “Yes! That was it! It sounded awesome! Do it just like that!” People like the feeling of accomplishment and praise. You want your students to feel that a lot in the lesson room. If they do, you shouldn’t really have to ask them to do anything. That is true motivation.
They should always feel in control
This is the most crucial element. Many studies show that a person’s happiness is very much related to how much they feel they are in control of their lives. The more you can help the student choose to play, the more they will want to. The motivation will stem from their desire, and not your orders. Let them create their practice routine. Let them choose between two exercises. Let them choose which rudiment to start with. The more control you give to your students, the more they will want to work on the material. Don’t underestimate them either. Trust that they will do the work if you give them the choice.
So, to sum it up:
DON’T:
- Tell them to practice more
- Try to sell them on the idea of pratice
- Make them feel bad
DO:
- Tell them everyday is more important than how long
- Ask what they want
- Make them feel good
- Make sure they feel in control
Next time, I want to talk about how to explain this whole “I’m not going to tell you to practice” attitude to parents. It can be a tough sell ;o) Feel free to e-mail me at JDemlow@gmail.com with any questions or comments. I look forward to hearing from you!
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