I’d like to share with you a few simple practice tips that will help you feel more motivated to practice. The more motivated you are, the more you will accomplish in your practice time. Sometimes motivation doesn’t come from what we practice, but how we approach practicing. I’d like to offer you some simple practice tips that have worked well for me and many of my students. Without further ado, here are my top 5 practice tips for every drummer.

 

Keep Your Expectations In Check

The first of my practice tips requires a slight change in mentality. It’s human nature to place expectations on ourselves that are far too big for the present moment. (Complete an entire lesson or learn an entire song for example). That can easily make you feel like you’re never getting to the top of the practice mountain. By taking smaller steps at a time in our practicing, we get a feeling of success and accomplishment more often. This can fuel our motivation to learn more. I like to call these my own little victories. 

Like a real mountain climber, your success depends on your attention to each step of the way and NOT on reaching the summit. All it takes is a little adjustment of our own expectations to help keep us motivated and feeling as though we are making progress.

In your practice time, a little victory could be learning a new groove, a drum fill or maybe playing something you’ve already learned at a faster tempo. Make it ONE thing that is small and achievable in a short amount of time. Chances are, you’ll want another little victory and then another and then “oooh, I have 5 more minutes to get another one in there”. Low and behold, it starts a chain reaction. By the end of your practice time, you’ll feel a tremendous amount of success. This will only make your next practice session arrive sooner.

 

Frequency Is The Key To Success

One of the most important of all practice tips is simpler than you think. Never turn down a practice session because you think it is not enough time. If you aim for 1-2 hours normally, don’t let that stop you from taking the 15 minutes that you have today. Practicing is most effective when it is frequent. Besides, most of us don’t have 1-2 hours of free time on a daily basis. If that’s your standard, then you’ll likely only have 1 practice day every week or two.

When you accept that any amount of practice time is worth it, then you will likely have 5-6 practice days every week. Some will be longer and some will be shorter, but overall, it will amount to much more than one, longer session. For some special tips on how you can make a short practice session effective, watch this video:

 

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

One of the easiest practice tips to implement is this one. Think of practicing as if it were like eating food. Feed your drummer a balanced diet. Your body needs foods from different food groups. In the same way, your inner drummer needs rudiments, time-keeping and grooves, drum fills, songs, etc.

Try not to spend all of your time on one topic, unless your practice time is short (20mins or less). Even then, you could easily spend quality, focused time on multiple things in 20 minutes. As a general guideline, I try to cover three topics each time I sit down to play. They are usually (but not always), technique or rudiments, groove playing, fills or other rhythmic ideas. If I have one of those days with nowhere to be and spend a lot of time practicing, then I might include a few more topics. Following these simple practice tips and changing your approach will help to make you a well-balanced drummer.

 

Start A Practice Log/Journal

Here’s a practice tip that will keep you progressing and growing. Keep a practice journal. You don’t want to waste the first 10 minutes of your practicing wondering what to work on. Use your device or keep a simple notebook by your drums and get in the habit of documenting what you worked on. This will help you balance your time so that you don’t spend all of it on one thing.

By seeing you what you have worked on recently, you can see the areas that get the most and the least of your practice time. You can also write down some of your goals for the near future. Simply writing them down will help you to achieve them.

It’s important to dedicate at least half of your time to focused practice on a lesson or specific topic. You don’t want to spend all of your time playing and jamming things you are already good at. This way you get some time spent on developing your skills, instead of spending all of your time being creative and that will lead to greater progress overall. Making notes about your practice goals is so important in fact, that I built in a custom notepad for every member at simpledrummer.com to use in their own way. If you are a member, you will find this tool in the My Notes tab in your Dashboard area.

 

Make Your Environment Comfortable

If you have your drums setup in a basement or a small rehearsal space with blank walls, then it is only a matter of time before you will want to escape that lonely environment. Adding a lamp or two, a few posters or pictures of your heroes can make your environment more enjoyable. If you spend some of your time listening to music, consider having a cozy chair to sit in. These added comforts will make your practice time feel more enjoyable and you will likely be motivated to stay in your space longer.

Having a comfortable practice space will increase your motivation and result in more time being spent at the drums. For more practice tips and ways to enhance your practice space, read this article.

 

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