How To DEFEAT Practice Room Monotony!

Has your practice been a little dry, or a little boring? Maybe you’re playing rudiments to a metronome or have been repeating a similar exercise trying to make progress, and its just gotten a bit BORING. Example: One of the most beneficial exercises that’s somewhat overlooked is Hand Foot Singles. These, however, are painfully awful to have to listen to, for your yourself, and surely for you neighbors.

It is a sort of catch 22, since the ESSENCE of practice, is exactly: Extrapolating a particular aspect of our drumming beyond the context of any aesthetic preference for the sake of improvement. It is very similar to physical exercise. In the same regard in how exercise isn’t always fun, SOMETIME drum exercises are not fun either. Often times it even sounds bad. I often give my students homework that is not the most glamorous thing to be doing on drums.

How do we make this more FUN?

How do we make it sound better?

Rest assured, there ARE ways to bring meaning to the monotony, and to make joy of the repetition. 

Here are my top 5 simple ways to make drum practice MORE FUN and ENGAGING

Embrace The Greater Goal

This is the most dry form of defeating boredom in the practice room because it entails a basic reframe in mindset; A form of self coaching, and requires mental integrity. Here’s an example: I HATE doing the dish’s. Probably more than I should. I do them, however, because when I am done, I will have clean amenities to help me clean and cook when I’m hungry again (which is usually about every 10 minutes). I know that what I’m doing is helping me, therefore, I intentionally bring awareness to the connection between the work I’m doing and the benefit I will gain, to make me feel better about doing it.

Next time your putting in the time behind the drum set, try to apply intentional mindfulness to the connection between the practice you are putting into the instrument, and benefits you will get to experience.

[This can be more difficult for beginners, since they don’t have a lot of experience in progress, requiring that this thought process be faith based, which is much more challenging than being able to reflect on past experience of making progress] 

Practice More Frequently

Make practice a habit! Practice, in one regard, is something you will simply gain benefit from simply doing it. In another regard, you will also get better at ‘practicing’ itself, and be happier doing it, if you do it more frequently. It becomes a habit. It is similar to going to the Gym. If you only go once a week, or maybe even once every couple of weeks, each time you go, it WILL be a drag. The workout will be very uncomfortable and you’re probably going to be sore the next couple of days. If you can commit, however, to 2, maybe 3 times a week, even if its a light exercise, you start to make a habit of it, I promise the routine will become much easier for you, and you will surely start making more progress, and be more content doing so; it creates a sort of upward spiral of additional progress!

Hum Melodies In Your Head

I have frequently used melody for myself and with my students to acutely improve playing. By simply imagining a “bass line,” or other melody, that you are trying to support, patterns will become acutely easier for your mind to understand. Why does this work?  This is the definition of ‘bringing meaning to the monotony.’ By adding a musical element to what we’re playing, even if it’s completely internal, it will bring a higher sense of ‘purpose’ to our playing; a sense of meaning. This is what music does for us. This internal derived sense of meaning and purpose will instantly act as a ‘pull’ in front of your ‘push’ of basic will power, and it will tighten your playing, and it will make what you’re doing more fun. 

Here’s an analogy: Imagine a deviant child who is struggling to respect particular rules or boundaries. If you kneel down in front of this child, and truly attempt to meet the child where he is at in his mental and emotional state, and communicate to him, wholesomely and exactly why we are following a particular set of rules, he is far more likely to oblige and respect the rules and/or boundaries being put forth (as opposed to bossing him around, and/or hitting him/her into compliance). This isn’t limited to children either. Any good leader is an expert at offering/creating a very clear ‘why’ behind every ‘will’ that is put forth. We our utilizing humans natural sense of purpose and meaning that we are hardwired to respond to.

Play To Music

Open up Spotify and play some music! Sometimes humming a melody isn’t the best solution and it would be more effective/easier to simply play music. It is perfectly ok to pull up some of your favorite music, or specific tempo based music to play with. This, again, plays on our sense of beauty and meaning that is derived from music.

[Playing to music can be great, but sometimes Spotify/iTunes is not a great option. In the case that you are trying to learn the song, having the original drum track behind you can really hinder your capacity to play to the music. I highly recommend using drum-less tracks, or an app called Moises!]

Add A Backbeat

And, for my last simple hack to making your boring practice less boring, is…To simply add a backbeat. A backbeat is typically 2 and 4 on the snare drum. This beat is the backbone of most music today and you can take almost any exercise and add a backbeat. By adding a backbeat, I promise, it will instantly improve the groove factor by 2 points. For a great example, when I have beginner students, one of the biggest problems I see is difficulty with the kick drum. Nobody really wants to use it. And even if they do, they typically have NO experience in using it at all. And it’s not as intuitive as our hands. Well, in comes the quarter note kick drum work, and let me tell you, it’s not very fun. But by adding a simple back beat with the snare on the 2 and 4, we start gaining better subdivision awareness, limb independence, and these exercises actually start to groove a little bit! It can serve as an anchor point in the measure for our minds to grab onto. A very effective tool indeed. 

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Now…

GO PRACTICE!!!