What to Practice

1. Listen

2. Use method books

3. Rudiments

4. Groove playing

5. Styles

6. Stick control

7. Reading

8. Dynamics

9. Tuning

10. Playing with a click

11. Song form (AABA, ABA, etc)

12. Soloing

13. Playing over the bar line

14. Odd time

15. Finger control

16. Transcribing

17. Two handed riding

18. Linear patterns (within the groove and soloing)

19. Left hand lead

20. Double bass drum

21. Fast tempos

22. Electronics (familiarize yourself with the latest midi equipment)

23. Instructional videos

24. Studio techniques

25. Odd groupings (3s, 5s, 7s, and 9s etc)

26. Polyrhythms

27. Beat displacement

28. Shuffles

29. Showmanship

30. Recording yourself

31. Augmentation and Diminution

32. Filling around accent patterns

33. Practicing extremely slow tempos

34. Continual linear tripolets

35. Continual linear 16th notes around the set

36. Motion exercises

37. Left hand and foot isolation

38. Drum physiology and ergonomics (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT)

39. Read drum publications

40. Brushes

You should never justifiably be able to say, I do not know what to practice.

How to Use a Metronome to Practice Drums

A Metronome is a vital tool in music education. Guitarists, pianists, violinists, and bass players, all use metronomes during their practices, therefore it's not surprising that drummers, the "time keepers" of music, do too. In order to be a good drummer, you'll need to keep good time, and practicing with a metronome can help you do that. The very basic drum practice is simple left, right, left, right... drum strokes. Start very slowly to develop good technique. You can set your metronome at 80 beats per minute, and strike the drum every other beat. This pace will give you enough time between strokes to concentrate on your form.

Try to land on the drum exactly with the metronome's beat. This will require you to lift your stick a bit before the beat. Once you feel comfortable with your technique at the speed you're going, adjust your metronome and increase your speed a bit. As you practice, never go faster than you feel comfortable, or your form and technique will fail, and if you practice with bad technique, you'll learn bad technique. Not good! Once you start going really fast, instead of having the metronome at a fast pace, you might want to do several drum strokes for every one metronome beat.

You should also practice any drum beat you play with the metronome. You'll probably find that keeping up with the metronome beats is a little more difficult than playing it "free style". When you practice a beat, make sure the metronome's accented sound starts the beat's measure.

Practicing with a metronome will improve your time keeping almost by magic. You might not feel your sense of rhythm improving while you work with a metronome, but you'll sense it when you later play without one.