I’ve always believed that you can learn technique from a book, but real drumming? That comes from playing with people.

Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned behind the kit didn’t come from private lessons or YouTube tutorials. They came from being on stage, messing up in real time, and figuring out how to listen better. Especially when it came to locking in with the bass player. You can’t really teach that in a classroom. It’s something you feel in your body once you’ve done it enough, once you’ve played enough gigs where the bass and drums either glue everything together or fall completely apart. And trust me, I’ve done both.

What helped the most with drumming wasn’t more practice, it was listening. And that’s been a recurring theme from every mentor or teacher I’ve ever respected. “Listen more than you play,” they’d say. At first, I thought it was about keeping volume in check or not overfilling, but it’s so much more than that. Listening is about being part of the conversation, not trying to control it. The more I started really paying attention to phrasing, to dynamics, to the energy in the room, the better I got at playing in the pocket, even when things got messy.

Playing live also taught me how to deal with the unexpected. Nothing prepares you for a bass player who comes in half a bar early, or a singer who decides to repeat a chorus out of nowhere. In those moments, theory flies out the window. What you’re left with is instinct, trust, and whether you’ve built the habit of listening closely enough to adapt.

I used to think that drumming was about controlling your limbs, your timing, and your gear. But more and more, I think it’s about surrender. Not in a lazy way, but in an honest, musical way. You surrender to the band, to the song, to the moment. You let go of showing off and focus on feeling what’s happening. That’s when something clicks. That’s when you’re not just keeping time, you’re creating something alive with other people.

And maybe that’s the biggest shift for me over the years: moving from being a drummer who plays notes to someone who plays music. The gear, the chops, the rudiments, they all matter. But at the end of the day, what I keep coming back to is this: listen first, play second.