Education
The Mental Approach To Learning Drums
Today, as drummers, we’re all spoilt – endless DVD’s, videos, books, websites – all of them offering a mind-boggling array of technical, performance and musical advice. Just deciding which ones to watch or read is a task in itself – then you have to decide which parts of those DVD’s or books you need to learn, which bit of advice is going to work for you (that's the important bit)– by which time, you have double vision and a grinding headache!
However, the solution is here – there is one piece of advise this old pro can give you which applies to EVERYTHING – yes, EVERYTHING!!
No matter what material you are using to learn this wonderful art of drumming from, what particular skills, or what exact piece of music you might be trying, there is one aspect of drumming that is the lynch-pin of the entire art – an aspect that, because we take it for granted, will seem very obvious at first glance – until you stop, put down your sticks, and have a much closer look at it!
And that aspect? – the mental approach to drumming.
Yeah sure, we all know that to do anything you have to have a certain mental capacity, we all use our brains to learn, so what is this bloke on about?
Like I said, it seems obvious, but when you break down that mental aspect, and actively think about what’s going on in your head when you’re drumming, or learning a new technique, what you find can have a profound effect on both your physical approach to the art, your self-confidence in your own ability and ultimately, your technical and musical skills.
So let’s take a look at this mental thingy!
The best way to put this is by listing, so here you go –
1. When we learn anything new, neural pathways are formed inside the brain – physical connections that create a pathway in the brain that, if you like, hold the memory of that action, or knowledge.
KEY:The more you repeat that action, the stronger the pathway becomes – the benefit to us – the more natural the action seems to be, and the easier and easier it becomes to execute. We know that ‘practice makes perfect’, but this is how it actually works. The human body needs to repeat an action at least 500 times before it even begins to recognise the action as a muscle memory, but the great thing is, if we know this, it greatly improves our confidence that if we practice regularly and with focus, we will DEFINITELY IMPROVE.
Knowing this gives you confidence that your hard work will indeed pay off, that all the time you are hammering out those tedious paraddidles, even if you FEEL you are not making progress, you can take comfort knowing that you ARE, and that it is very much worth the grind!
Okay, so that’s the ‘physical’ side of how understanding the mental side of drumming can help our confidence and encourage us to practice. Now here is the other side – HOW we view our practice, performance and goals can also make a huge difference. So this is really the thought processes we can harness rather than the biological aspect as above.
I take great care to point out the following to my students, in an effort to boost not only their confidence, but faith in achieving their personal drumming goals: When you watch you role model drummer, be it Weckl, Gadd, Smith – whoever, and you think ‘Jees, I’ll never be that good’ – then DON’T!!
DON’T think like that. I know that these guys have years of experience, years of playing and usually a certain amount of natural ability, but if you think like this, you’ve sold yourself short before you’ve even begun.
Remember this; - the ONLY main difference between you and these guys is time. They have often had 8 hours a day to hone their craft for years. Most of you guys are either in full time education or holding down a day job. So you do not have this kind of time to practice – but come on, we already know that humans work the same – the more you repeat something, the better you get, the stronger those neural pathways become; so to close the gap, to get closer and closer to being as good as these guys is getting in as much practice as you can. The pros are not super human – they ALL got as good as they are by doing the same as you – practicing with vigor and passion and joy!
So okay, we may not ever get the time to reach the skill level of these drumming heroes, but you must take confidence and excitement in knowing that it really is only the amount of time you’ve put it that separates you from them – and take on board the fact that keeping this at the back of your mind should spur you on to better yourself again and again and again!
You CAN be a great drummer – you CAN be as good as you wish you were now. Just put in the time and it WILL pay massive dividends.
Join us for the final article in the series that deals with subconscious reinforcement.
Last but my no means least, is another strange but wonderful phenomenon that occurs in the old brain box – I call it ‘subconscious reinforcement’ – sounds creepy, eh? But relax, this does not involve any surgery! It’s an observation I have made from years of practice, and you may already have discovered it yourself.
I find time and time again that this happens; I’m in a regime of focused practice of a particular technique, and I give myself a few days break, even longer sometimes, after two or three weeks practice. Then, when I start up again, and this is the wonderful part, I am, 99% of the time, far improved past the point when I stopped those few days ago.
This may sound odd, but I promise you , it happens. The key is strong, focused practice for a good two weeks BEFORE a few days rest. This seems to give the brain time to let the muscle memory and new neural pathways to subconsciously reinforce all the work you have been doing.
It’s as if this allows the brain to divert the energy it would have been using to help you learn (as you practice) into strengthening the new technique you have taught it. Now, I certainly don’t have a physical explanation for why this happens – all I can do is assure you that for me, and many of my students, it works.
So, there you have it. All of these mental aspects can and will effect every areas of your drumming, so remember, whatever DVD you are emulating, whatever book you are learning from, use these mental aspects – keep them at the forefront of your mind and apply them to your individual situation, and allow them to boost your confidence, your outlook, your ability, your technical and musical self-expectation and the endless joy that drumming should always bring.
Author: Steve Rigg
Physical V Audible
As we all know, practice is the key to success (in pretty much all things), but sometimes we hit a rut, or just don't seem to be improving. It happens to the best of us!
And that's when the passion for our drumming, the motivation can sometimes dwindle. Frustration sets in and the idea of practice, because we feel it isn't working, just doesn't appeal.
So how about this for a moral booster when you find yourself in this situation? It's all about the difference between what your limbs might be feeling, and the sound your limbs are actually producing (well, the drums, if you get my drift!).
Here's the rub: always keep upper most in your mind that how your hands, for example, might FEEL when you play, say, a paradiddle, will not necessarily reflect the actual SOUND you are producing.
A good example is the weaker hand. You are playing this paraddidle, and your strong hand feels fine, but your weak hand feels as if it is making more effort today, just to keep up. So, quite naturally, you think what you are playing is sounding awkward, or uneven, simply because the feedback from your weak hand is FEELING stiff, or slow.
Now here's the motivational part, and so many of my students have tried this and been spurred on by it's results - record that paraddidle and listen back to it. Almost every time, you will find that the SOUND you produced is much more even or better executed than you FELT at the time. Listening back, without feedback from your hands or feet etc, gives you the chance to assess your performance objectively, not subjectively.
Not only will you find your playing is better than you thought, but from a practice point of view, when you are in that rut, if you listened, say at the end of each week, even though your limbs might say 'I'm not improving', the playback will be a clear indication that you ARE improving.
Try it. It really does help - but don't expect changes all the time. Give yourself intervals to improve, then use this assessment idea - you will find it motivates you when you HEAR even the smallest improvement that you missed whilst ACTUALLY PLAYING it.
Best of luck!
Author: Steve Rigg
Overcoming The Fear Of Fills
This is a subject that crops up almost more than any other when asking students new to me what particular problems they want to overcome. To that end, I hope to allay a few fears and point you in the right direction when it comes to playing fills.
As normal with drumming, there is, of course, that ever present ‘mental aspect’. However, it plays a small part compared to the practise techniques we are going to use. So let’s cover it now –
Billy Ward makes a very good point of this in his DVD, Big Time, and although this was something I already taught, I find his explanation ideal to pass on here: much of what we play when drumming we play within our comfort zone. And there is nothing wrong with that. Most times, that comfort zone is achieved as a result of hard practise, so that when we play, these things come to us naturally and without effort – i.e., they are in our comfort zone.
However, there are times that the body position, or hand position, or even the musical genre will throw a drummer outside of his comfort zone – sometimes, and depending upon the skill and experience of that drummer, with detrimental effects. And with those starting out on the demanding journey toward natural, spontaneous, musically colourful and appropriate fills, the initial hurdle is exactly that – converting their musical ‘discomfort’ zone to their music ‘comfort’ zone.
But what is this comfort zone I keep on about? It’s this; when right handed drummers play a groove, their hands are crossed across their chest, shoulders dropped and a little turned in – a comfortable, familiar position that the drummer spends the majority of his time in. The brain gets quite happy with the body being in this position, the heart, lungs and centre line of the body all pointing in towards the snare, the seat of the kit. A balanced, strong position. Physically, and indeed mentally, he is in his comfort zone. But what happens the moment we want to play a fill? – we sit up slightly, our hands become uncrossed and arms open up, our chest is exposed, and we are twisting the centre line of our torso slightly towards off centre – and usually towards the ogling audience (a lot of us drummers like to hide behind our kits, so opening up to an audience is not often something we’re happy with). At once, if we are not practised at this, we have catapulted ourselves miles outside our comfort zone.
So, before we look at the construction of fills themselves, we have to practise becoming confident with this open position, and thus allow it to become part of our comfort zone. Once we’ve done this, we have the self-assurance to concentrate on fill structure, fill improvisation and good, clean fill execution.
The way I teach my students to overcome the initial hurdle is to split the idea of fills into two parts. This is the crucial aspect.
a) Learning four ‘sound groups’ to eliminate the task of thinking about ‘what to play’, the minute you come off of the groove and into a fill b) Once this is mastered, and confidence gained, learning to combine sound groups and using them upon appropriate instruments around the kit, until the idea in the head is played out on the kit without conscious thought.
You must be disciplined enough to ensure you do not move onto to b) without having gained absolute confidence with a). Doing this will cause this method of fill development to fail totally. You need the consummate confidence gained in a) before b) will ever begin to work.
So, here is a):
- Learn these four sound groups –
(known as ‘black-cur-rant’ for non-readers)
(known as ‘lem-on-ade’ for non-readers)
1 e (+) a (do not play the ‘+’)
- Choose one of these to work with.
- Play a groove.
- Play the chosen sound group –
- BUT DO NOT, IN ANY WAY, THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE HITTING!!
The crucial idea here is you rely totally on the sound group. Just let your hands play the sound group, and let them wander – give no attention to what drums you are hitting.
Ensure you practise this for at least two weeks daily. Part a) is designed to get you feeling totally relaxed when you open up your posture and leave the groove in order to fill. It has nothing to do with how the fill sounds. You are concentrating on bringing the act of ‘going into a fill’ into your comfort zone.
The great bonus here, is that 90% of the time, if you rely on the sound group, the fill will take care of itself and sound fine without you ‘choosing’ what to hit. I cannot reiterate enough that you MUST NOT get concerned over what to hit, just put all your faith in playing the sound group.
Play them over and over and over again, using one of the sound groups above until you feel no apprehension when coming off of the groove into a fill.
Then, begin to combine the sound groups – two at a time, then three, then four – play around with as many combinations of the four sound groups as possible, but NEVER thinking about what drums you are hitting – that’s the crucial part!!
Once you’ve mastered this, you can move onto b) which will polish and refine your fills, and have you playing tonally balanced and great sounding fills. We’ll go into this next time, so come back soon for part b). And remember – have faith in those sound groups!
Author: Steve Rigg.