Practicing as Problem Solving

The logic is simple: if we want to improve, we need to work on the things we can't do, rather than simply repeat the things we can. The following are some simple techniques you can apply to assess and conquer your drumming problems.

Ask yourself, “WHAT AM I TRYING TO PLAY?”

An old teacher of mine used to say, “if you can't hear it, you can't play it.” It took a little while for the profound meaning of this simple seeming statement to sink in. Basically, before the impulse comes to move the stick toward a drum or cymbal, there is a conception of the note we're about to play. We need to have an idea in our heads about what we're about to do. Whether that idea is a result of reading a piece of music or hearing something and imitating the sound, the process is the same.

Now that I teach, I can't count the number of times I've had a student tell me that they're struggling with playing something only to find out that they either don't understand or can't read the notation and/or can't clearly hear what it is they're trying to play from a recording. I liken this to trying to read a word out loud in a foreign language that uses a different alphabet without knowing that alphabet beforehand.

So, if you're confronted with a piece of music that you'd like to learn to play, first make sure that you understand all the notation on the page. This might include combinations of notes and rests you've never seen, or form markings like repeats and endings that are unfamiliar, etc. Get some help. Try online, in a music text book or ask a teacher or fellow musician.

If you're working with a recording, one common problem is that the drum part is buried in the mix or goes by too fast to hear. When I was younger, we would hold our fingers down on vinyl records while they were playing to slow them down so we could try to decipher what was happening. Luckily, these days we have access to videos of our favorite drummers to refer to. But in the absence of that, we also have access to music editing and/or recording software that allows us to manipulate sound recordings to make it easier to hear what's being played. Personally, I use an open source piece of software called Audacity. It's simple to download and install and fairly intuitive to use. I sometimes import MP3 recordings of songs I or my students want to learn and then use the Effects generators to slow the recording down and/or equalize certain frequencies up or down to try to expose the drum part. So simple, even a caveman could do it.

PUT THE NOTES IN ORDER

I'm fond of a story I once read about Yo Yo Ma. If you don't know, he's a legendary concert cellist who sells out concert halls all around the world. Google him. Or have a look on Youtube. Whether you're a big fan of classical music or not, mastery is mastery. Anyway, it's said that when Yo Yo was first learning to play the cello, he would take very difficult pieces of music and learn them one bar at a time. Sometimes it would take him weeks to work out one single bar of a famous solo piece. Many would say these pieces were “too advanced” for a player of his calibre, but he didn't know that. He simply dove right in and had the discipline to work out the fingerings and bowing patterns he needed to use to get the notes on the page into the right order. Now, I certainly don't expect all my beginner students to get themselves a copy of Zappa's infamous The Black Page and start working it out, but I think the example demonstrates that with the right kind of slow, deliberate practice, great things are made possible.

Practice new material slowly. VERY slowly. Don't worry about playing things in time the first few times through. I call this playing stepwise. Simply play through the part putting the notes/motions in order. After you've figured out the sequence of notes and motions you need to make, then you can put them into strict time. Be disciplined about this. If this means taking 2 minutes between two 16^th notes to figure out the next set of motions you need to make, so be it. The point is to stop and take the time to figure out what exactly you're trying to play so that you have a clear conception of it for next time. Remember what was said above – you can't play what you can't hear.

If the part seems fairly simple to you and within your technical abilities, then play through in time, but make sure to put the notes in the right order. If you hit any trouble spots. Stop. Put the right note in the right place. Then carry on to the next problem area or to the end of the selection, whichever comes first. Don't gloss over wrong notes hoping that they'll magically put themselves in the right place later on. Face up to your demons! Also, keep track of these trouble spots either mentally or by marking the music with your trusty pencil. You know, the one you always have with your music stuff...

From here on in, we're going to focus on the stuff you can't do, not the stuff you can. A lot of great research has been done in the past few years into the phenomenon of “talent”. The question posed by many of the authors is, “what makes people who are really good at things really good at those things?” And one of the answers that comes up time and again is PRACTICE. I just heard you collectively say “DUH! That's obvious, dude.” But what isn't obvious is that great athletes and musicians often use a similar kind of practice. Rather than constantly repeat what they already know and do well, they find the holes in their game and patch them up.

A majority of your practice time should be spent working on stuff you can't do very well, yet. Of course there is room for playing your favorite groove over and over while imagining yourself in front of a stadium full of adoring fans. But, if that's the only kind of “practice” you do, you won't see much progress. Progress is largely about improving stuff we do badly. So we need to have the honesty and courage to face up to our weaknesses and the drive to kick their butts with dedicated practice.

ZOOM IN and REPEAT

Here's how it works: now that you've figured out where your trouble spots are, you're going to ZOOM IN on those areas and REPEAT them many times until they are no longer troublesome. This could mean zooming in on a whole bar or just two 32nd notes.This process should – as always – start very slowly and in stepwise fashion. Be patient. Give your poor brain a chance to catch up to your ego. Of course, sometimes there are underlying problems with our technique or coordination that make it very difficult to play a part as a whole at first. If so, move on to the following steps.

SIMPLIFY

This concept is simple enough, if you'll pardon the pun. Essentially, we're going to break the part we're trying to play into bite size chunks. Just like you wouldn't try to chew an entire steak at once, with musical problems it pays to bite off smaller bits and chew them well.

One simplification technique is to isolate limbs. If the part requires 4 limbs to play and it's too difficult, perhaps try 3. Or 2. Or even 1 at a time. Another similar technique is to isolate your hands from your feet. Once you can play the part using one limb or a combination of a few limbs, then add in the others one at a time. Or you can take parts played on many surfaces and move them to one surface to work out the sticking and, once done, move it back to multiple surfaces either all at once, or a little bit at a time. Think of it like building a house from the ground up. You can't put the roof on until the foundations and walls are firmly in place.

CONTEXT IS KING..err...QUEE...err...DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED LEADER!

Once you think you have a particular trouble spot conquered, it's time to work on transitioning in and out of it. To do this, I usually make short loops of 2-4 bars including some bars preceding and following the trouble spot. I play these loops repetitively at slow speeds, first stepwise then on my own or adding a metronome or track to keep my time in check. If you're wondering how to make a loop of a track – remember Audacity? Such programs will allow you to easily snip out a piece of music, loop it and play it back at various speeds while you play along. SCIENCE!

Once you're able to play the (no longer a) trouble spot in a short loop, expand the context to include an entire section of your piece or even the whole piece depending on where you're at. If it isn't to play the section or the entire piece at the correct performance tempo, you'll need to work progressively with a metronome to get everything up to speed. You have a couple of options here.

1. Work up sections of the song to performance tempo one at a time, then put them together.
2. Work out all your trouble spots, and attempt to work up the entire piece to peformance tempo as a unit.

Which path you choose here may depend on the length and difficulty of the piece, how many trouble spots you have, etc. Remember that we're problem solving here. The exact same method isn't going to work for every problem.

PLUG THE HOLES

Sometimes we come across things that we just can't do just yet. Perhaps our left foot isn't up to scratch with our other limbs. Perhaps our finger control needs work. Perhaps we just need to be able to play a decent single stroke roll to play a certain tom fill. When we come across these troubles in the course of trying to play new music, it's a good idea to go in search of exercises which will improve these areas. In these cases, sometimes I use exercises in books or that I've gotten from teachers to address my specific weaknesses. Other times, I develop little exercises of my own that target the weakness I've spotted. I come up with a few different ways of working on the problem and I start including these in my practice routine alongside the specific work I'm doing on the piece(s) I'm learning.

I think this is a very important step in building a strong technical foundation. Because while it's possible to get through a piece of music and learn the specific motions needed to play that piece, it's wise to build a strong foundation of fundamental technique that can be used to play all kinds of different things. Rather than just being able to play the fills in 1 song really well, we need to develop the technique to play the fills in many songs AND be able to create our own when the time comes. Many new and self-taught drummers who come to me for lessons have knowledge/technique which is a mile wide, but only a centimetre deep. I'm of the mind that it's better to have things the other way around, because often a deep technical foundation will be applicable to many songs, genres and styles. Single strokes are the same the world over.

LOOSEN UP

After the first one, the techniques listed above are largely interchangeable. They may not end up happening in precisely the order in which they're laid out here. Don't be too rigid. We're problem solving, and sometimes problem solving means being flexible in our thinking and perhaps coming at the problem from a number of angles. Sometimes, stepwise practice and copious amounts of zooming in and repeating won't get you where you want to go right away. In such a case, you may have to spend significant time plugging some holes. But, don't get discouraged. When we get knocked back by a challenging piece, we have a choice to lie down, whine and cry and lick our wounds. We can tell ourselves, “I suck, I'll never get it!” and start a vanity thread on a drumming forum. OR, we can look at it as a learning opportunity. We can be brave and look our weaknesses in the face and set out to conquer them in time. Who would you rather be? The person who shrinks back from every little set back? Who takes their ball and runs home at the first sign of trouble? Or a person who – with great patience and mighty determination – works to come back bigger, faster and stronger the next time?

PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION

To defeat a powerful foe, we need a plan of attack and we need to stick to it. Like an MMA fighter, we need to focus on our opponent, learn all of their weaknesses and come up with a game plan to beat them. Then we need to train and prepare.

To defeat your playing foes, start by keeping a practice journal where you type or write down your long, medium and short term goals. For example, perhaps you want to play Mr. Brightside by The Killers. The verses of this song require the ability to play a single stroke roll as 16^th notes at around 149 BPM. Depending on where you're at in your drumming career, that may seem like a doddle or it may seem like an impossible hill to climb. Either way, the process of goal-setting should be the same.

Start by setting your long-term goal. E.g. “By this date I want to be able to play Mr. Brightside. I think it's important to set a definite date, but be realistic. Now, sometimes the date is set for us – i.e. there is an upcoming performance or audition for which we need to know the material. As always, push yourself, but be realistic. Everything is possible, but some things are more possible than others...

Now, let's set some short and medium term goals. These are going to be detemined by where you're at in your development. If you can already play 16^th notes at 140 BPM, you'll set different goals than if you can only play them at 100 BPM. So, here's a medium term goal for a person in the second position: “By this date, I'm going to be able to play my single strokes at 120 BPM.” Again, be realistic. Expecting a 20 BPM jump in your single strokes in a week is probably expecting too much. However, a month of regular practice might very well get you there.

A short term goal would be “today, I'm going to play this single stroke exercise to 80 BPM.” If you tick off that goal, then you set another one, “next practice session, I'll play it to 84 BPM.” Slow and steady wins the race. Be the tortoise, not the hare. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Google “tortoise and hare”.

Keep careful track of your progress, and plan your practice routines around these goals. Know what you're going to practice before you pick up your sticks. Stay on task and mark down your achievements toward your goals. Write down any difficulties you have a long the way, or any observations. For instance, if you're playing has taken a step back but you haven't had a good night's sleep in 3 days, write that down. Keep an eye on what seems to make your practice sessions successful and what hinders them. Perhaps you get more done in the morning than in the evening? Maybe a meal or a cup of coffee immediately before gets your fires burning.

Now and again, review your goal dates. If you're way ahead of schedule, revise them accordingly. If you're behind, assess whether or not you're really putting in enough work to get the job done or whether you simply bit off more than you could chew. It's okay if you did. Discovering this doesn't mean you suck or will never be good or that you won't reach your goals. Rather, it's a learning opportunity. You've just learned a little about yourself, and about your process of getting better and about how to set appropriate goals.

Once again, it's your process. No two players get to their goals in exactly the same way or in the same timeframe. And don't get discouraged if you are practicing well and the gains aren't coming steadily. Sometimes we may work away for a while only to have the improvement come in a big, sudden jump. Sometimes it comes in a steady, linear fashion. The key is to do the work and not waste valuable time and energy worrying about outcomes or comparing yourself to others. You can't control that stuff, so don't bother trying. What you can control is how well you set and work toward your goals.

Happy practicing. Leave a comment. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!