First things first - grab your free study-guide here.
In my teaching, everything needs to justify its existence. (Or at least that’s what I tell myself.)
There aren’t any exercises there “because somebody said we’re supposed to do it.”
Everything answers to a musical imperative. And you can probably guess the reasoning: if you want to get good at something, you should at least start with the assumption that the most efficient way to do it is to practice that thing.
Following this logic, I didn’t make technique a prerequisite for anything. “If you’re trying to playing something musical and it’s a bottleneck, deal with it then.”
Trouble was…
…I started to see the same roadblocks developing in multiple specific cases.
For example, somebody trying to play linear improvisation having trouble getting their ghost notes in time.
Somebody trying to play funk on the hi hat finding the consecutive notes challenging.
The common denominator was hands. (For this video, at least. In real life, sometimes it was also one or both feet.)
And that’s one exception to the “practice exactly what you want to play” rule: when you keep hitting the same issue across multiple things you’re trying to play, it may be more efficient to take a breather, and practice that “hub skill”.
“Shoot. That’s the same thing as a prerequisite.”
And then I was back in the nicotine-stained back-room of Ace’s Custom Guitars on East Main, with my elementary school drum teacher staring me down, saying “you can’t play the kit until you master these books on the practice pad.” (Names changed to protect the innocent.)
I don’t want to be that guy. And I won’t. But what I will say is, with you want to do musically as a starting-point, backing up to some technique prerequisites can be helpful.
And not just to play fast or fancy stuff.
To get your ghost notes on a slow grooves in the right place.
To play a fill without tension.
To get a good, consistent sound out of the drum.
Not to mention to play into…older age.
So I put together a video on it. One which includes maybe the most comprehensive study-guide I’ve ever made, so you’ll want to download that. (At the top of this article.)
Hope you enjoy!