Growth and practice time

When I was younger I used to practice 2 to 3 hours most days of the week. Over the last couple of years I’ve found that it’s hard to stay in the practice room for more than an hour to an hour and a half at a time by myself. Anything beyond that and most times I just start getting incredibly antsy. Not really sure why that is. I’m sure I’ve put in thousands of hours of practice time in my life. And those really long sessions never used to bother me back in the day. But I find that when I currently try to do that kind of thing by myself I feel like I’m dragging myself through the motions. I always want to keep growing and expanding my skill set as a musician. But I think if I try to force myself to go for those long marathon sessions, I definitely hit the place of diminishing returns because of the lack of focus. So what I’m trying to do is embrace the fact that I top out mentally between an hour and an hour and a half of practice time. And even though I’m going for shorter periods of time by myself, I make the absolute most of that time by being as focused as possible so as to maximize my potential every time I’m in the practice room.

Wondering if anyone else has gone through a similar process?

I also felt the same way that you felt brother. But I told myself that in order for me to be the best I have to step out of my comfort zone mentally. I had to train my brain understand that I want to be the best, remember that we as drummers get easily bored especially when we play alone. We lack focus easily when we are alone, it becomes worst when there is no music playing in the back round. So I made it a point to buy myself a mixer and headphones to feel like I am playing with someone or people for more practice and longer hours.

Try energy drinks (only half joking)

But yeah, I think if at the end of the day you're thinking to yourself "pity I was only able to find an hour to practice. I want to practice more but everyone is in bed now!" you're likely to experience more growth than someone saying "it was hard going and unenjoyable, but I pushed through and practiced for three whole hours straight."

Everyone is unique, but like, for example, practicing singles, doubles, and paradiddles at 95% of top speed for 30 minutes? That's draining as hell.

Same thing, but forcing yourself to play slowly and very gradually building up the tempo? Boring as hell.

Again the same thing, but this time focusing on your hands and making the motions feel *perfect*, pushing the tempo up slightly... the feel is still good, a little bit more concentration. A bit more... now you're starting to lose it. You can still play at that tempo all day long, mind you, but that perfect combination of wrist, finger, and doorknob arm turn action all working perfectly isn't quite there. You bring it back a bit, and it reestablishes. You move between German and French, and even past French a bit to where the hand is turning upward, and notice that at certain points the transition becomes jerky. You focus on moving back and forth over that range, modulating the tempo to maintain that perfect feeling. Then you start moving it across the kit, etc.

That sort of practice can be really engaging. The sort of activity you can do until a body part gets sore. In my experience, at least.

Just keep it short and sweet. When I was younger and I had not a care in the world or any other adult things to worry about, I could practice all day too.

I've done practice subconsciously for years. Practice pad and a pair of sticks on the sofa so I'll practice away watching the TV or along to some music.

My experience, as a bass player, is that I used to improve much more quickly and that excitement helped me to play longer. Then I got to the point where things started to get more detailed and I was working on little nuances. Then the music started to get harder and I had to spend hours on a few bars. There is a bass concerto that I worked on for like 10 years and it still sounds amateurish. And then I listen to guys like Gary Karr and Egar Meyer play it with such fluidity and 'ease'. It's kind of discouraging. But, I have to take a step back and realize that I can't compare my playing with the best of the best. I think improvements come much more slowly now and it's something that I have to work through. I guess it's more mentally exhausting to play the same 4-8 bars over and over again, bumping the metronome up one click each time. I know that I have to do stuff like that, but I also like to mix in things that are more 'fun.'

I wonder, when you did the 3hr sessions did you practice exercises or just dick around?

I find that I can waste a number of hours just playing along to things but I only feel productive when there’s some intent or deliberate exercise, and perhaps you can get more longevity from your sessions if you are a bit systematic.

drummingman said:

When I was younger I used to practice 2 to 3 hours most days of the week. Over the last couple of years I’ve found that it’s hard to stay in the practice room for more than an hour to an hour and a half at a time by myself. Anything beyond that and most times I just start getting incredibly antsy. Not really sure why that is. I’m sure I’ve put in thousands of hours of practice time in my life. And those really long sessions never used to bother me back in the day. But I find that when I currently try to do that kind of thing by myself I feel like I’m dragging myself through the motions. I always want to keep growing and expanding my skill set as a musician. But I think if I try to force myself to go for those long marathon sessions, I definitely hit the place of diminishing returns because of the lack of focus. So what I’m trying to do is embrace the fact that I top out mentally between an hour and an hour and a half of practice time. And even though I’m going for shorter periods of time by myself, I make the absolute most of that time by being as focused as possible so as to maximize my potential every time I’m in the practice room.

Wondering if anyone else has gone through a similar process?

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Oh man, when I first started playing, I'd play until I hurt, and then I'd go grab a drink and come play some more! These days, I rarely practice unless I with other people.

Personally, I would stop thinking in terms of "skill sets", that makes me want to die from the get go.

I mostly practice along with loops I pulled off of records, and those pull me along. It's really easy to play for 45 minutes along with things like:


That's to work on anything, not just funk at that tempo, definitely not just learning the drum groove on that song. Like I worked through a whole bunch of Dahlgren & Fine with that track.

Some things need to be worked on by themselves, in a not-fun way, but mostly, if you can hold the sticks, you can be working on musical vocabulary, time, touch, sound, on connecting things with other things, on expanding your concept in general. None of that needs to be boring-- it actually needs to be interesting, having a point of reference, like by playing along with a recording, helps.

toddbishop said:

Some things need to be worked on by themselves, in a not-fun way

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For myself at least, independence is the one thing I can think of that falls into that category. Nothing fun about forcing your limbs to do things they are desperately rebelling against until they submit.

Jeff Graw said:

For myself at least, independence is the one thing I can think of that falls into that category. Nothing fun about forcing your limbs to do things they are desperately rebelling against until they submit.

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Everything is independence though-- or coordination. Figuring out the combined rhythm of all the parts, then playing that rhythm as a four-way sticking, makes it a lot easier, and the results more solid. No struggling whatsoever if you start at a tempo you can do it.

I used to practice two hours a day a year ago. Now, it's been a year with inconsistent practice times and duration. But I know where my weaknesses are and I have a plan to get better in terms of what to work on and what order. I just can't figure out a schedule that works. To be fair, I did all the work to relocate my mom and I to a new city last year, which included finding and buying a new house. That takes time. So I guess that's my excuse. Got the motivation, got the space to make noise again. Just have no time to do it.

rhumbagirl said:

To be fair, I did all the work to relocate my mom and I to a new city last year, which included finding and buying a new house. That takes time. So I guess that's my excuse. Got the motivation, got the space to make noise again. Just have no time to do it.

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That all takes a tremendous amount of effort. Sounds like keeping your priorities straight, IMO. You're thinking about playing... it will come when the time is right and it will feel great.

toddbishop said:

No struggling whatsoever if you start at a tempo you can do it.

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Technically true, sure, except:

toddbishop said:

Everything is independence though.

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Is also true, for the most part, say whenever you have more than one limb involved and limbs are performing non-identical motions, that's independence.

Just putting the notes in the right place isn't the not-fun part of independence for me. At most it's a bit boring if you need to start out at something like a single digit tempo.

For me, the not-fun part is more like, when you have two limbs that can play two different rhythms just fine, until one begins doing the Moeller motion and/or the other has a specific accent pattern.

Or say, when you first start doing anything complex against "Tony Williams-style fives" (eg. down, up, up accent, down, up accent) or sevens.

I find that sort of stuff unfun because until it's 100% you're going to randomly trip over it sometimes, and the only way to get it to 100% in a reasonable time is to leap in with both feet and use it every chance you get. Anything less than 100%, and you get this grey area where you use it at your own risk, but you want to use it anyway.

And, this might just be me, but failures of independence *feel* much worse than a failures of coordination. Coordination is never 100% if you're human. So like, at a certain point if you push a single stroke roll fast enough your coordination *will* fail, but it has a quality of... sputtering out. Failures of independence have a quality of everything going stiff and your body disobeying you, and I just find that much less pleasant.

But, whenever you get independence on a thing to 100%, it really is an amazing feeling.

I'm not saying any of this as someone who shies away from independence work. I'm always working on at least a couple independence things, and always with both hands leading.

Jeff Graw said:

Is also true, for the most part, say whenever you have more than one limb involved and limbs are performing non-identical motions, that's independence.

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I deny it's a thing altogether-- it's all one player playing one rhythm. There's no qualitative difference between playing four limbs in unison vs. four limbs in some other combination, it's all coordination.

Like if I play some 8th notes RLRL RLRL on the snare drum, it doesn't turn into something else if I move one hand to a cymbal-- quarter notes on a cymbal with an independent rhythm on the snare drum.

The audience is hearing two independent rhythms, the player is playing RLRL.

Jeff Graw said:

Just putting the notes in the right place isn't the not-fun part of independence for me. At most it's a bit boring if you need to start out at something like a single digit tempo.

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That's just the nature of hard stuff, starting slow and perfect. You don't have to do it at that speed forever.

This is all just about the fastest way to do the stuff, and do it well.

toddbishop said:

Personally, I would stop thinking in terms of "skill sets", that makes me want to die from the get go.

I mostly practice along with loops I pulled off of records, and those pull me along. It's really easy to play for 45 minutes along with things like:

That's to work on anything, not just funk at that tempo, definitely not just learning the drum groove on that song. Like I worked through a whole bunch of Dahlgren & Fine with that track.

Some things need to be worked on by themselves, in a not-fun way, but mostly, if you can hold the sticks, you can be working on musical vocabulary, time, touch, sound, on connecting things with other things, on expanding your concept in general. None of that needs to be boring-- it actually needs to be interesting, having a point of reference, like by playing along with a recording, helps.

Click to expand...

I have a similar approach. There is the pad stuff done to a metronome

But with a lot of the kit stuff I work on, I try to do that to drumless songs or sone of those "practice trading fours" videos. If I'm working on a particular fill or lick, it more fun to incorporate into a training structure like that as opposed to playing it over and over out of context to a metronome...even though I start out that way until muscle memory kicks in.

toddbishop said:

There's no qualitative difference between playing four limbs in unison vs. four limbs in some other combination, it's all coordination.

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Couldn't disagree more.

Coordination and independence aren't only not the same thing, they're practically opposites: One is the ability for limbs to work together and the other is the ability for limbs to work apart from one another.

You know what the role of the Corpus Callosum is? It's the structure in the brain that facilitates almost all of the communication between hemispheres. Sever it, as is sometimes done to treat epilepsy, and you're left with super human right-left independence and very little ability to coordinate. Polymeters and polyrhythms for days, but good luck with your rudiments.

Likewise, four human beings sharing a single kit, where each human contributes exactly one limb, would have perfect independence at great cost to coordination.

drummingman said:

When I was younger I used to practice 2 to 3 hours most days of the week. Over the last couple of years I’ve found that it’s hard to stay in the practice room for more than an hour to an hour and a half at a time by myself. Anything beyond that and most times I just start getting incredibly antsy. Not really sure why that is. I’m sure I’ve put in thousands of hours of practice time in my life. And those really long sessions never used to bother me back in the day. But I find that when I currently try to do that kind of thing by myself I feel like I’m dragging myself through the motions. I always want to keep growing and expanding my skill set as a musician. But I think if I try to force myself to go for those long marathon sessions, I definitely hit the place of diminishing returns because of the lack of focus. So what I’m trying to do is embrace the fact that I top out mentally between an hour and an hour and a half of practice time. And even though I’m going for shorter periods of time by myself, I make the absolute most of that time by being as focused as possible so as to maximize my potential every time I’m in the practice room.

Wondering if anyone else has gone through a similar process?

Click to expand...

Maybe you hit a plateau where you keep practicing what you are already good at and not getting better because you have already mastered those things. Maybe it's time to seek new things to master.
On that subject (seeking new things) you have to keep it somewhat close to your skill so that you can actually start achieving those things, otherwise you will have nothing but frustration.
If you find yourself getting antsy it's because you are not having fun which will make practice seem like a chore and make it way less productive.

Now ignore everything I just said because I never practice. I just play and have fun.
I hope you find your groove though.

Duck Tape said:

I wonder, when you did the 3hr sessions did you practice exercises or just dick around?

I find that I can waste a number of hours just playing along to things but I only feel productive when there’s some intent or deliberate exercise, and perhaps you can get more longevity from your sessions if you are a bit systematic.

Click to expand...

I don't practice a specific thing in particular, I practice to a song I can't currently play (but for the most part I can play almost correctly) that helps me focus on the nuances that I am missing, then I start getting better by being able to play more and more until I get to the point where I can play the song correctly all the way through. (Mind you, I don't do this in a span of practices I just do it in ONE practice). I don't really call it practice because I never really just focus on one song, I usually play about 40 songs and really can play about 30 of them correctly the first time around and the other 10 I play until they get frustrating, then it's time to move on and re-visit them later.

99% of times I am able to achieve what I was after, the other 1 percent, I give up after 4 or 5 tries and re-visit later when for some reason I am actually able to play the whole thing through.

My approach is to listen to the song several times BEFORE I touch the drums, by the time I get to the drums I got the nuances drilled into my head, (This is crucial to being able to play difficult parts) when you understand what is being played, you can play it, even if you can't play it at 100% speed at least play it at 80 to 85 % until you get it right, then you can speed it up until you can play it at the regular speed, then add another 10 percent faster and master that, once you do that, go back to regular speed and that WILL feel easy to play at that point.

Now getting ready to hear from all the drum instructors here how my approach is not great and I should take lessons.
Well, Lessons are not for me and I would die of boredom following a book of rudiments. It is much more rewarding to be able to play what your favorite artists play , that gives you motivation to keep "practicing".

One example of a song where I needed to understand what was going on is Fear is the weakness by In Flames:

That bass drum pattern is not particularly fast, but is hard to get it right, that one still frustrates me.

doggyd69b said:

My approach is to listen to the song several times BEFORE I touch the drums, by the time I get to the drums I got the nuances drilled into my head, (This is crucial to being able to play difficult parts) when you understand what is being played, you can play it, even if you can't play it at 100% speed at least play it at 80 to 85 % until you get it right, then you can speed it up until you can play it at the regular speed, then add another 10 percent faster and master that, once you do that, go back to regular speed and that WILL feel easy to play at that point.

Now getting ready to hear from all the drum instructors here how my approach is not great and I should take lessons.
Well, Lessons are not for me and I would die of boredom following a book of rudiments. It is much more rewarding to be able to play what your favorite artists play , that gives you motivation to keep "practicing".

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Nah, not going to tell you that, at least unless you can find a really great teacher.

But I will suggest that you could try shifting your focus away from learning parts to more just, well... improving.

Not saying that you can't do the former at all, just that it probably shouldn't be anything close to your primary means of learning.

The things you're focusing on reproducing? For the recording artist, the vast majority of the time that's some combination of highly internalized things that came out in the moment.

You get good by taking something general, playing with it, mutating it, moving it around, and combining it with other things, not by memorizing a bunch of ultra specific stickings. Those "check out this cool fill: left, right, kick, double left..." Youtube channels are really the bane of learning drums.

To the extent you are focusing on something specific, it should be *on top* of your existing general aptitude. Less "Okay, this is what I need to do to play this part" and more "Oh, I hadn't thought of arranging paradiddles that way before. Working through this part will help me gain that facility."

I almost never look at songs as things to learn, but instead as vehicles to learn things. Like a more exciting metronome.

Jeff Graw said:

Couldn't disagree more.

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OK.

Jeff Graw said:

Coordination and independence aren't only not the same thing, they're practically opposites: One is the ability for limbs to work together and the other is the ability for limbs to work apart from one another.

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Apart how, like separate from a single human nervous system? Serious question.

I don't see the value of that distinction. All that coordination/independence is is notes in unison and notes in sequence, both of which are forms of working together.

What I'm talking about is very much like the way pianists learn new material-- very slowly, and not allowing any mistakes.

The attached page is very difficult if someone looks at it as a lot of independent rhythms, and then tries to get it by brute force. It's never going to sound good. I've done it.

Going one note (or stack of notes) at a time it goes a lot faster, and the end results sound better, which is all I care about.