Hey friends, I recently joined lines for modular discussion after seeing how focused this community is on process and music instead of just gear talk. I was surprised to see a thread about drums and wanted to drop a line.
I’ve played drums in a variety of bands ranging from hip-hop, funk, to free jazz(my secret drum passion). I’m a huge advocate for process and developing a philosophical relationship and understanding of the drumset and how to express your ideas be it melodic, rhythmic or free flow.
For anyone that’s reading and is interested in developing their innovative and creative approach on the drums instead of just learning to recite existing drumisms found in rock, funk, jazz, etc I have a few ideas I’ve picked up over the past 10 years immersing myself in the drums and live performance. Hopefully someone can find inspiration from this!
-Creative expression on drums (or any instrument) is based in a feeling and the way you connect a feeling to movement. Practicing yoga, learning to concentrate on breath and allowing movement to follow the pattern of the breath can be really valuable to develop motion on the kit
-Spend time flailing, move your arms, legs, and allow the sticks to freely go where they will. Don’t try to make a beat or judge if the resultant sound is musical. Just develop an openness to motion, in time this openness to motion will converge with technical skill
-Seek out technical exercises and master a few. This can be “boring” but it’s required to develop articulation and execution of ideas. Get comfortable creating your own exercises and adapting/changing exercises you find. Ultimately in order to develop your own voice, you need to have your own phrases, dynamics, conceptual approach to playing. As far as specific technical exercises I highly recommend 1. getting a teacher because they will show you proper form and technique that will allow you to develop a solid foundation. 2. Learn paradiddles and their permutations. A vast majority of drumming is alternating the left and right hand between drums in either a single or double hit. Paradiddles will equip you with this facility.
-Separate practice into “technical” and “creative” sessions. During technical sessions always use a metronome, record yourself, listen back for dynamics, timing, how the drums sound and calibrate what it felt/sounded like when you were playing vs listening back. This is crucial. During creative sessions, don’t worry about exercises and metronomes. Just explore.
-When practicing with a metronome, add an ambient pad sound behind the metronome. The pad will fill in the space between the metronome beats and allow you feel more of a flow.
-Find people to play with, try to communicate up front about skill level and intentions so as to connect with the best people for you to play with. Record these jam sessions and listen back. Playing with people is maybe the single most important part of developing as a musician because it gives context to the time spent practicing and will guide what you should focus on to improve.
-Play along to records. You can play with the best bass and piano players this way!
-Use a drum machine like a Korg Volca Beats or Digitakt as a learning tool. Create a specific beat on it and then play along to it. This allows you to easily change the tempo, remove/add complexity as needed
-Download the Drum Genius app. It’s a collection of beat loops ranging from jazz to rock to odd time signatures. You can slow down/speed up the beats.
-Cymbals! Don’t compromise on cymbals, you can get cheap drum kits and make them sound good with the right heads and tuning but a bad cymbal can’t be compensated. Also spend time with just your cymbals, explore the bells, hitting the edges, scraping a stick across, playing at the edge, the middle, near the bell, crash it, play it with mallets to make it swell like an ocean wave. I’m a big fan of Zildjian Kerope and Constantinople. As a general rule of thumb, a cymbal that is heavier than 100 g/inch will be more of a ride, whereas cymbals less will exhibit more crash like qualities. This isn’t a hard line because the lathing and hammering will influence the feel in addition to the weight/size ratio. I like turkish style hammered cymbals like Istanbul Agop, Bosphorus, and Zildjian’s Kerope or Constantinople line.
-Sing while drumming
Laslty, and most importantly
-Read Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner, it completely changed how I approach learning an instrument.
If anyone has any questions about process, exercises, overcoming plateaus, etc feel free to reach out.
Some music of mine
(Free improv)
(Hip-hop/funk/jam band EP)
