5 Tips to Improve Skill on Drums

I started drumming back in 2010. I was eighteen years old and it was a real big challenge.

But since I am all about challenges I took it and it turned out to be a real fun process.

When you are learning something to pursue it professionally you need to treat it in a PROFESSIONAL way. Here are a few tips I learnt in my 10 years to improve my skills.

Consistency is important when mastering a skill. For consistency one needs to develop a Proper Practice Schedule.

To attain professional level of play ability you need to practice daily with 4-5 sessions of 45mins-60mins.

A basic drum training schedule should cover

1. Sticking Patterns

2. Foot Patterns

3. Independence Training

4. Tempo Accuracy (Practicing with a Metronome)

You can add on the other topics as time progresses but initial training should cover these.

The definition of technique varies from drummer to drummer. Some refer to what they play on the drums as technique but I will refer to technique as how you play the drums.

Drumming requires all 4 of your limbs, both your hands and feet. Developing proper technique for both feet and hands is the key here.

Let's talk about hands. There are several ways to hold a stick.

To get yourself started you can look up these.

1. Traditional Grip

2. Matched Grip

3. German Grip

4. French Grip

As for feet you can look up these

1. Heels up

2. Heels Down

Improving on drums requires you to challenge yourself. When you learn drum parts which you have never tried it increases your control on your instrument.

Few genres you should try exploring is 'Progressive Rock', 'Jazz', 'Latin Drumming', 'Blues' and 'Heavy Metal'.

Drumming is the backbone of any band or musical act. The tighter the drumming the tighter the band sounds. So as a drummer it is very crucial to understand Time signature and Subdivisions of Notes.

When drumming a single phrase of music has a certain number of notes that can fit in it.

Playing even a single extra note can throw off the whole band.

So it is important to understand at least basic Time Signatures of 4/4 and 3/4.

Learning Drums for the first time is very exciting and one gets inclined to practice daily so that we can improve ourselves faster. But the thing to understand is that drumming is about co-ordination of the body and mind.

After practicing for 6 days its wise to give 1 day off to your brain . Taking 1 day off will give your mind time to realign and understand new skills.

Conclusion :

Bear in mind that I am not providing you the extreme in depth run-through.

These are just topics to get you started on researching about things you should know.

In future blogs, I will write in depth about various techniques that I utilized.

Drumming requires a lot of hard work and patience to fully understand and perform.

And keeping a proper practice schedule is crucial to developing the skill of drumming.