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My dear musicians and music lovers,
We all have something we share- the passion for music. The most difficult part comes when we have to sit 8 hours in front of the kit to practise; in the end, though, what matters is how we practise, not how long we do it.. We could lose 8 hours and not feel we have achieved anything or we could do 2-4 hours of conscious practice and be able to play confidently what we have just practised.
So, to be more practical I give you a few tips how to practise efficiently:
1. Do a few minutes of physical exercises to have all your muscles warmed up;
2. Decide what pattern or groove you would like to practise;
3. Before you put the metronome at a very low bpm you already need to know the pattern;
4. Start playing the pattern, focusing all the time on the relaxation, feeling, position and SOUND;
5. Gradually increase the tempo focusing on the same elements, none of them less important than the others;
6. Once you reached a good tempo, decrease the tempo again. It is hard to play slow once you get some speed.
7. Increase the tempo again until you feel that is the good one for what you want to play.
Alternate the fast speed with the slow one!
After practising fast for a while, there is the risk of the hands just to "run" on the drums, having an uncontrolled position and sound. We don't deal with exact pitches, so we have to make sure we develop our own sound.
8. Once you feel comfortable with the pattern, imagine a song on it and make the drums "sing".
9. Imagine your drum section on the song you have in your mind. Adjust the dynamic level according to the song.
10. Have fun while you practise! The time will fly if you are enjoying what you are doing!
11. Be creative!
If a groove is well played only on drums you should be able to hear, feel the music coming out of it without any other instruments ! ! !
The last advice is play music, don't play just drums.
I hope these few lines will help you find your sound and get you to a good technical level. They definitely helped me a lot.
Enjoy your practice!
