I saw a YouTube video a few days ago that has stayed with me. He spoke about focusing on what’s giving you the most trouble. For example, if there’s a difficult section of a song, stop practicing the whole song and only work on the tricky bit. It stuck with me because this was how I managed to learn to perform songs on guitar for open mic. If I practiced the whole song, I’d hit the hard part and of course screw it up. Then I’d repeat the whole song again, screw it up again, and I would feel like I’ll never get this, I suck, etc. Once I realized to just repeat that section over and over, there was progress.
I’m not working on any song for learning drums at the moment, but I thought about this concept and decided that my left hand was my bottleneck. So I picked up my practice pad and just started doing left hand strokes. I don’t even need two sticks. Whenever I walked by the pad, I’d pick it up and practice for several minutes. Over the course of a single day, I started to notice improvement already. I even noticed that I can almost twirl the stick with my left hand. Something I couldn’t do before and all of a sudden, I see that I will be able to soon.
And this is my new plan for practice. Whenever I’m bored, have a couple of minutes, or just watching YouTube, I’m gonna sit there and work my left hand.
And it reminded me of a conversation I had with a sales rep at Guitar Center when I bought a pedal. He said he has one behind the counter and he kicks on it all day. I had completely forgot about that conversation but now I see how it’s the key to stamina, speed, and control. You need to get your reps in every day. So I’ve ordered a practice pad for kick pedals.
Tools of the focused drummer…
