How to improve...

Rehearsal vs. Practice vs. Lessons

Students of the drum,
I have good news and bad. The bad news is that playing music is difficult. Drumming well requires thousands of hours of practice. Learning a new genre will take even longer. 
The good news is that it’s so difficult, the satisfaction of improvement never ends. When I joined STOMP I was already playing and teaching full-time. Still, it took 200 hours of training and 100 shows before I felt reasonably competent. After 1000 shows I was still improving. 

To improve, you must do all 3 of the following: 

1. Lessons: First you need lessons from a good teacher to understand the way forward. One good lesson should provide you with 10-100 hours of practice material.
2. Perfect Practice. Once you know what to practice you must put in the hours. Make every note as perfect as you can, with 100% focus. Sloppy practice=sloppy results. 
3. Rehearsal/Performance: learning to play with others, perfecting repertoire, interacting. 

All three steps are important, but deliberate perfect practice is the fastest way to get good. It’s not easy or even fun but it’s satisfying and effective. And it’s free.

Practice tips: 

• Use a metronome, correctly. 
• Accuracy first, then speed. Slow down until you can play something perfectly. Only then should you increase your speed.
• Make short videos of yourself practicing. Watch the videos for mistakes and bad habits.  
• Learn to enjoy the process, not just the result.

Good luck!
Noah