Any advice for a new drummer?

So I just started drumming about a week ago, on one of these:



I am LOVING it so far. I think I'm actually doing pretty good. I can play a lot of covers just about perfectly, since I have years of desk-and-steering-wheel drumming experience Anyone have any particular kind of advice for me? Maybe someone could point me in the direction of some free online drum lessons or something?

 

Well, the quicker you get off of that thing and behind a kit, the better off you'll be. You might develop some amount of wrist speed with it but you won't be doing a thing for your foot speed. Not to mention developing independence between your hands and feet. Not to mention developing your feet at all.

Do you know anyone who has a kit that would let you practice on? Take some lessions from?

As far as free lessions... um I don't think they exist.

 

Cool, that looks like an airplane cockpit!

I'd say keep learning those covers, but be sure to pick some hard ones w/ weird time signatures & polyrhythms. Bill Bruford (Yes), Phil Collins (OLD Genesis), Neal Peart (Rush). It's never too early to learn good habits. :H

 

I saw an electronic drum kit at a music store earlier this year and thought, "How practical would that be to record from home? You could plug direct and not worry about micing the kit."

 

Yeah it's no comparison to a real kit, but it's perfect for developing independence between hands and feet...I can even get a real bass/hat pedal for it...you can play anything you could on a real drum kit on there. Everything's just cramped together. It's at least helping me to get the basics down well enough.

And I was thinking something along the lines of cyberfret.com or something, not lessons per se.

 

So it has a bass drum/hi-hat module with it? That was the biggest drawback I saw from the photo. Get that as soon as you can. The pads won't give the same bounce as heads but then Dennis Chambers practiced by hitting pillows, so...

As far as practicing to songs, range far and wide. Rock, blues, jazz, reggae, ska, second line, even rudiments, anything you can put your hands on. You might try the library's music department for self help books/tapes/videos.

A word of advice - start slow. If you have a song that is giving you trouble, try slowing it down and learn at that pace. What happens is that your ear can decode the music and your brain can process it, but your limbs need a bit of time to react the way they need to. So slow the signal down until your limbs catch up. Then you can bring the pace up to tempo. Once your limbs learn what to do, it's yours.

 

Find something with a double-bass pedal. If it doesn't have double bass, you have no business playing it.

 

I'm not into electronic drums too much. I used to play in a big band. The drummer is there to establish the groove of the song, to keep the tempo steady, and to give the kick beats to let the other band members know where to come in. It sounds simple but some drummers forget to follow those three basics.

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Unless you've got a mean right foot. John Bonham never used a double bass pedal, but listen to "Good Times Bad Times" woaaaaaaaah

 

Oh, puleez.

 

check out Okay Temiz

 

Yeah, see those 2 things in the picture that are off to the side? Those are the pedals, one hat one bass drum. Haha, I wouldn't fuck with anything that didn't even have pedals! I'm trying to learn to drum, not just randomly bang on some pads...lol.

Oh and you can also set it to double bass, which is awesome (but hard)!

 

www.drummerworld.com

Check out as much as you can, watch every video you can.

Dave Weckl
Dennis Chambers
Vinnie Colaiuta
Steve Smith
Billy Ward
Jojo Mayer


you can also check this site with some cool material:

http://www.vicfirth.com/education/educationmain.html


Apart from that, try to play every style of music, thats the best way to became a complete drummer

 

It is hard, but keep practicing. Double bass skills is what gets you laid.

Dunno 'bout anybody else, but a good blast beat really turns me on.

 

yea, laid by 15 year old sluts from cleveland

 

practice practice paractice practivce practice practice get laid prace get laid practice get stoned for a while then play and practice more hehe LOl

 

1)Get a kit
2)Get a van
3)Get used to being the first band member to arrive.

 

The best possible for a drummer to learn is to play in time, in tempo, perfectly everytime. Just close your eyes, pick a simple pattern, and try to get a groove going. Use a metronome a lot. If you have a (good) bassist to play with, then good.

I'm not a drummer, I'm a jazz bassist, but being in a rhythm section of a jazz band, I know that the most crucial thing is groove.

Keep tempo well, and everything will come. Focus on the basic rhythm, instead of how fast you can go with a double pedal... whether you can pedal a hi-hat on time, while drumming other stuff is more important.

This is, of course, if you want to be a serious drummer.

 

LOL.

True dat!

 

the best advice besides trying to get some good instruction books or videos, is to play along with your CD collection.

all the answers are in your CD collection.

plus finding a teacher is always a good thing to do.

talk to as many other drummers as possible

watch as many drummers as possible

practice and play with others as much as possible