The only time I have ever grown as a drummer is when I challenge myself with something I couldn't play and wasn't comfortable with. Going outside your comfort zone is the only way.
Thank you for putting progress into perspective. I was having a great time learning drums until I opened my big mouth and let the worship leader at church know I thought I was ready to join. My first Sunday is this week. I have had a terrible practice week--getting frustrated at not sounding like I think I should, anxiety about playing on Sunday, and lack of gratitude with how far I've come. When I started playing, my only goal was to learn a new skill and maybe pitch in to contribute on the worship team. In the last 7 days, my mindset has gone from, "It's not about me, my goal is to serve the song and help lead people into worship," to "Why can't I get this right? I'm going to sound terrible and embarrass myself and everyone around me." What??? Time for a radical attitude shift. This lesson couldn't have come at a better time. God is amazing!
Keep it nice and simple, take deep breaths, pay attention, and you'll be ok! Remember live playing mistakes come and go and float on down the river. I think having an immediate goal of THIS SUNDAY will really help you progress!
Another great lesson, Stephen! Your videos are always a great use of my time. I'm fortunate that I started my drumming journey almost a year ago (at age 55) with the right mindset of wanting to learn and progress, but enjoying the simple accomplishment of playing the drums. My progress has been at a very deliberate pace, but it's always fun for me and I can now look back at almost a year and realize how far I've actually come. I am nowhere near my long term goals yet, and it may take a long time to get there, but I'll have a blast with my music and my drum kit every step of the way!
Stephen, thank you for all the inspiration. I occasionally sit in for the drummer at the Baptist church and I have come a long way. I’m 62 years old and still learning!. Been playing since I was 6! I am proud to be a Born Again Christian, and I really enjoy when you speak of Christ. Thank you again Brother.
Steven, Sunday morning greetings to you from South Bend, WA. I have always admired your positive and motivating approach you put out on your channel. I am a 74 year old retired elementary teacher/varsity football coach, and you, my friend are the real deal. I totally appreciate all you do for all of us out here. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.❤️🙏❤️🙏❤️
Drumming is very frustrating for me because of all the different things you need to learn , independence , feel, groove , hands etc.. but your right what’s the hurry , I tend to jump around a lot and never master anything real well, I’m working on your 30 day rock independence and I’m stuck at 8th notes on the hats , I’m staying focused on this but it’s new to me, keeping time with the hats , I’m not stopping till I go through the whole 30 day guide 😊
Sometimes this happens to me! So, I find a song with the pattern I want to learn and keep playing it. Sometimes I play other songs during that time as to not get bored, but AFTER I get that “Warmed up” feeling I go back and play my song with the part I want to learn. And soon I find time is flying……2-3 hours, are gone and I’ll video the beginning and the end of my practice. ALOT of times there’s aBIG breakthrough. I also use the Evan’s “Realfeel” pad. Keep plugging! Soon it will be a thing of beauty.
Guys, I have another "problem". I don't have a goal, finish line,... I don't want to play on stage, don't want to gig with a band... I want just keep learning and and play for fun. So even if I want to hurry, I don't have reason. It's for me fun, relax, hobby... PS: maybe in future I will play live, iam not against that, just it's not my goal.
I'm 41 picking up drumming for the first time, I'm actually excited pushing my self, but i'm taking my time learning one part of a the music sheet at a time. I finally got excited to listen to the beat of the music and have that help me with playing rather that only hitting the notes, but i'm getting better at reading the music notes.
This is really great advice. Thank you for sharing this. I didn't get past my being stuck until I started to set specific goals. For example, I decided in 2020 that by 2021, in one year, I would be able to play the song Rosanna by Toto. I knew it would take more than just learning the half-time shuffle, but it would take going back and build foundation that was lacking. So with every step in learning this song, I had to keep retracting my steps to the basic foundation of grip and fulcrum and triplets and ghost notes, etc., fix those, getting them down correctly and comfortably, then attempt the half-time shuffle, then get it to speed was another process. It was one year, but my drumming has improved a lot in this process in other aspects. I didn't just learn a song or mastered a new difficult beat, I actually began to move up in my drumming level.
Thanks for another great video Stephen! I started learning a couple months ago and I felt lost and stuck with my progress until I found your channel. Your videos, PDFs and paid lessons are helping me so much. I now know what I need to be practicing. I love the tip to write down my goals so I can track my progress and the tip to video myself playing. Thank you for sharing your faith! It’s very uncommon to find that on RU-vid and very refreshing! Keep up the great work and God Bless!
Very helpful. I’ve been on the verge of giving up for a while. Self taught but I work out of town so practice is difficult. I work on rudiments in the hotel room but I don’t seem to see any improvement. I have a lot to think about.
Keep practicing. I couldn’t do a ghost to save my life. The first time I did I jumped up and told everyone in the house. Don’t give up! The best part is learning something you could never do! It’s a blast since I’ve quit worrying and started thoroughly enjoying it!
I used to play like animal in my teens. Then I got a back injury and quit for 20 years. I have aged veey well and now I am patient and learning from the ground up. Thanks for all of your videos. Just hitting a drum is great after so much time away.
Already love the lesson 15 seconds in, as the opening beat is Heroes, my first song of the month in the community. Back then it was hard to play. I was bad or not as good as I thought I was then. Now I could play this and be relaxed doing so. It took me lots of work, dedicated practice and loads of uncomfortable situations. But this paid off! Now I am on a good way to get my first band as an adult. It is great to be on the way and cherish every moment of it. Thanks to you Stephen, who set me on the track to non glamorous drumming basic control. Who challenged me to try new ways and play things I would never have tried on my own. Thanks for showing me how to be a better drummer, a better musician and a better person !
this is exactly my experience (i'm still in the bad phase though as i lost motivation to practice) but i'm trying again, knowing that i will fail and feel crap but this is a necessary stage
Appreciate the lesson and your thoughts. I returned to drumming in 2022 after having not played for 30+ years. My experience with respect to hurrying is this has been sort of an undulating experience for me so far. I've progressed and enjoyed the process, but I've also experienced serious frustration on the lack of progress. Being fixated on something and not getting it to the degree that it paralyzes and kills the enjoyment and motivation, but also experiencing stick-tuitiveness with the slow, steady process of learning new things. Just showing up, being okay with sounding bad, settling in to long, arduous task and work of new challenges. I'm checking out the book. Looking forward. Thanks!
Gotta say even after 30 years of playing this opened my eyes a bit. I've tried using each digit as a fulcrum as a stretch or exercise, but never gave the middle digit as the primary a second thought. Just played with it a bit and it hasn't opened up yet but I feel like there is massive potential there once my hand takes the hint. Thanks for this!
Such a powerful insight into how I need to apply this to all things in life and to my drumming As you said we generally know this but don't adopt it Everything has a season including us so .why not enjoy along the way Thanks Stephen really appreciate your effort in doing these videos God Bless you
I picked up drums as an adult, meaning I have family, job, bills, other hobbies. So my goal was to have fun once a week with friends who were also musical. Music is a way to unwind and while there's an incentive to improve, this isn't a job, and won't be for the vast number of musicians. My lessons (lessons because you don't want to practice mistakes) focused on jazz and funk, because if I could play those, I could play rock and folk, or disco. I'd prioritize spending on lessons over equipment and organize your own band if possible. Learn how to read drum notation and standard notation, learn a little music theory and how songs are arranged. Learn enough keyboard so you can explain ideas to bandmates. Learn to sing and if you can't sing, learn to scat. Music is a collaborative effort, so always keep that in mind and suggest and be open to any new idea.
Several months ago I bought a drum set just for fun and something to do. Unfortunately I'm not getting the time to practice as often as I'd like but I'm enjoying it.
This is so correct! Two thoughts from me. First - it has to be a good thing that old videos of you playing are worse than you could do now. Otherwise you're not getting better. Do you want videos of you playing from before today to be better than you could do today? Surely not! And second - the key thing with playing in public is to make sure that the things you are bad at/still working on are not on display - don't try them in public. Keep what you do to what you know you can do reasonably well. Do the simple version of the fill, not the one you aren't confident of pulling off! Work on that for next time! The band/audience will only notice if you overstretch and don't pull it off! Keep producing the videos Stephen. Exceptional advice.
I am grateful that I get to play at church every week. And I saw a video that said something to the effect of, "When you make a mistake, do it again so it seemed like it was on purpose."
I love the little things and learning songs moment by moment and e.g. learning little hi hat motions and every moment was a joy I love the videos and helping me keep the little moments here keep up the good work
Thank you for sharing your Faith, I love your content, your skill, and honest humility, and obviously your ability to stay on task, and professional with your teaching ability.
The difference between an "apprentice" and a "journeyman" is practicing your trade. Reaching mastery is part practice and more so "gift". Most will never attain the ability of a Rich or Morello! My advice on the journey, especially if you're playing in a band is to protect your hearing. Too loud is doing damage. Hearing protection is a must..
I love how I always get both a drum lesson and a life lesson from your videos Stephen! As you were speaking I was thinking "man this guy is speaking truth. He's tapped in." And I wondered about your spiritual practice and seconds later you mentioned Jesus. lol divine timing indeed. Thanks for another wonderful vid!
When asked how to be good at guitar, Joe Walsh replied,” You have to get out there and suck until you don’t suck anymore”. Eloquently and accurately stated. 😅
I'm not sure what the exact ratio should be, but even PROS, at least when it comes to practice, often say you should spend most of your time practicing sounding like shit. If your sessions sound great, you aren't really pushing or challenging yourself. Drums are far more nuanced and difficult to do well than people give them credit for. A common complaint among musicians generally is that proper drummers are really hard to come by. It's a really important component of music. I'm willing to bet the ratio of good drummers to drummers in the aggregate is far lower than for other instruments. Bad percussion can sink a whole band, while mediocre musicians can be hugely elevated by a great drummer (see: blink 182). My theory of why drums are tricky is that mistakes and unevenness are readily perceivable, and due to how the sound projects and where you are in relation to said sound, it's VERY hard to perceive how you actually sound in real time.
Stephen, Love your videos and you purchase lessons, but please back off the distracting background music, it's too loud, thank you for your great lessons.
I subscribed when I thought you could teach me about being a better drummer. I unsubscribed when instead of hitting drums you started bible bashing. We are totally out of sync. But thanks for the drumming lessons.