Practice Advice Needed

When I'm playing something for the first time, I try to play it at a slow enough tempo to play everything correctly, including dynamics and accents. Then, I take it by sections and increase the speed as I go. Just remember, you don't have to get everything up to lightning speed on the first day. That's why daily practice will get you further than trying to cram it all in for a couple of days. Also, Gregg Bissonette told me that if you play something 21-22 times, muscle memory will kick in and you'll start to retain it. Good advice!

Mike

Quote:

---

Originally posted by drumgod1:
if you play something 21-22 times, muscle memory will kick in and you'll start to retain it. Good advice!

Mike

---

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I like that piece of advice. Although, it seems a very specific number. You sure he didn't mean twenty one and a half times? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Practice something until you get bored or distracted, then move on to something else. Attention spans vary from day to day. Sometimes it's good to detach the mind altogether (auto-pilot) and work some repetition for muscle memory.

I just want to say how much I appreciate everyone's advice. Thank you all so much!

This has given me new insight into how I can better use my practice time. Now, hopefully, my practice time will be more efficient and less frustrating.

Keep your practice sessions interesting and motivating. If you don't you won't practice as long.

Strive for accuracy but I think it's better to get through a bunch of exercises passably than to take one and run it into the ground for 3 hours.

Go back and keep going over that group of exercises until they are mastered, ingrained into muscle memory etc.

Divide that 3 hour practice session into working on a greater variety of material you need to do and that interests you. It takes time to create the neural pathways to enable you to play anything smoothly - this involves REM sleep periods. So trying to master an exercise that is difficult for you in one day is just dumb. Take a few days (or weeks), work on several things at once, and I think you'll be amazed at how much material you can get through after a couple of months of this.

Practice shouldn't be torture.

Don't forget, no matter what tempo you start or end at be sure the physical technique stays consistent. It's great when you're at a nice comfortable tempo and everything is relaxed but there usually comes THAT speed where things tend to start getting tight. You need to make a conscious effort to not lose that feel. This will help keep the faster stuff flowing the same way it did at the comfortable tempos. When this occurs I like to bring it down one or two clicks to get that relaxed thing back and spend just a bit more time there to really feel it before bumping it back up.

Also, no matter what kind of exercises you are doing keep something musical happening. Shading of dynamics, accents etc. When working on rhythmic things work them in "melodies" around the kit. When I was a little kid I would hum tunes along with static exercises. It kept things interesting and added another dimension of independence.

Good subject matter, as usual.

In my opinion, you should always
strive for accuracy, as it has al-
ready been said.

In addition, I believe that (to
expand on what Brad mentioned) you
should be working on things that
you really want to work on. You
will focus more on it.

Make it something that you will
put to immediate use, in the play-
ing situation.

Work on a paradiddle-diddle to fit
into your application of Elvin or
Steve or flams for your application
of Tony or Lenny etc.

You know. Make it real.

[img]cool.gif[/img]

I find that rather than just playing rudiments over and over at one tempo, changing them up from one extreme to another really is challenging. Or just doing the rudiment then popping in quarters for one bar, it's like trying to stop a freightrain.

It forces the muscles to do very different things and I think it helps with smoothness.

But no one ever accused me of being smooth.

Again, more good advice. Thanks guys!

I'll just add that, now that I'm not working so much on just one exercise, I am enjoying my practice time more. I also feel that I will be able to progress much more quickly than before.

Some say that it's better to practice a method for 15 minutes every day rather than to work on it for a few hours once a week. The latter has been more effective for me. I practice different methods on different days and try to really concentrate on that task. When I come back to it, and it has had a chance to resonate (ferment, pick your metaphore) in my mind, the progress is noticable.

Not everyone learns the same way. Try different routines.