In this second installment on developing independence against this difficult foot ostinato that was originated by Max Roach (but also used and performed by such modern greats as Neil Peart and Bill Bruford), we'll focus on playing eighth notes and swung eighth notes with accents. We're still maintaining this brain-twister of a foot ostinato while doing so. The reason for this next step is that playing accented continuous 16th notes is a basic soloing idea that you'll want to be able to use regardless of the genre... The post “The Drum Also Waltzes” Independence Part 2 first appeared on BANG! T ..read more

Plain and simple: we're learning to read music for the drums. In this lesson, we'll do that by studying "The Table of Time." The post 11 Steps to “The Drum Also Waltzes” Independence first appeared on BANG! The Drum School ..read more

What’s up with the disrespect of groove drummers? I am sick of it. Let’s start with what got me thinking about this. The other day, I posted a little meme about Steve Gadd on my Facebook page. Here it is. Have a look. Here’s the Steve Gadd quote from the meme: “If you have a lot of chops and you get bugged because the music doesn’t require great chops, it’s difficult to be open-minded about the music. You have to get beyond the wall you set up for yourself.” There are a few reasons why this is interesting and inspiring. The first is that it is very likely that Steve is speaking from experience ..read more

Here's a topic that you may find unimportant. It doesn't have anything to do with how you sound. It doesn't have anything to do with your playing. It only has to do with how you look while you play. It's pure showmanship. There's nothing wrong with this. After all, we're performers. If you're entertaining the audience, you're doing your job. The post How To Spin Your Drum Sticks first appeared on BANG! The Drum School ..read more

Drumming Decoded, my book for beginner drummers, is about to be published. Here are 4 of the book covers I'm considering. Let me know what you think. The post Beginners Drum Book: Help Me Choose The Cover first appeared on BANG! The Drum School ..read more

If you’re a beginner drummer, I wouldn’t blame you if you felt a bit confused, or even overwhelmed at the amount of information out there these days. It comes from everywhere, right? YouTube and other social media feeds, drumming facebook groups, reddit, and on and on. Everyone has an opinion but who’s right? If you feel overwhelmed, it’s not your fault. This is just how the world is these days. I thought back to when I was just starting to learn to play the drums. Lucky for me, I had a great teacher right from the beginning. Every week I’d go to my teacher's house and he had a plan for me. We ..read more

As most of you probably know, independence is crucial to drum set playing. Since some of you reading are brand-spanking new to drumming (and I welcome you), here's what independence means.... It's the ability to play a repeating, non-varying pattern with one limb (say, your cymbal hand) and then, simultaneously play varying patterns with other limbs (say your left hand or right foot). All the while, the original limb, the cymbal hand in this case, is continually playing the repeating and non-varying pattern--and it does this without changing it at all. That's indepdence in the world of drummin ..read more

There is a common mistake that beginners make when practicing. It's very easy to overlook it when you're a novice, but it really is a devastating error. People often jump from one thing that they're practicing to another much too quickly. It makes sense that you might do this because there is a psychology of pressure that is created when your drum teacher hands you a worksheet with 25 exercises on it. You see all that ink and you go to practice and you feel like you have to get to the end of the page in order to have achieved something.  While you're in the practice room, just the simple ..read more

Introduction Here’s a question that comes up a lot: “What are the best headphones for drummers?” I’ve got the answer. I’ve tried a bunch of them. But it always comes back to one thing. And I always come back to one particular set of headphones. If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I’m not always interested in analyzing every single endless possibility. You don’t need to read about ten different headphones I’ve tested and the pluses and minuses of each of them and then their prices. What you probably want is just the answer, right? What are the best headphones for drummers a ..read more

Recently, on Reddit, I noticed that microphones were being asked about. More specifically, the question was posed: “What Drum Mics Should I Use?” Now, I should preface my answer to this question by stating that I am not a true recording gear head. In other words, I don’t understand all the pluses and minuses of different technical issues. You know, things like:: Frequency response Directional patterns Cartridge type Decibel scales Etc etc For a lot of that, if you want to get really technical, you can check out this great article I found here: https://www.dpamicrophones.com/mic-university/how ..read more