3 "Pro" Beats Most Drummers (Probably) Can't Play

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I’m endlessly fascinated by drum stuff that looks easy, but is hard. In lessons/videos/etc, sometimes I need to work to make the case that there’s “another layer” of subtlety. Indeed, my first few weeks working with many drummers are spent simply discovering that that layer exists.

We can tell on the surface that there’s something Tony Williams has that we don’t, for instance. But try to go into the practice room and practice a detail that will get you closer to Tony. The picture gets pretty “pixelated” when you zoom in far enough. You can lose the forest for the trees.

That’s why I love “heuristic beats”. Beats you simply won’t be able to make sound good unless these “second layer” subtleties are in place.

No disrespect to the great drumming on either of them, but songs like ACDC’s Back in Black or Tom Petty’s You Don’t Know How it Feels are songs I’d give to a more beginner student, because either the bass line buoys you along and provides “guide posts”, or stays out of the way, allowing you to simply place your beat in approximately the right spot, and it’s going to sound great.

If you try that with Aaron Parks’ Karma, which Eric Harland made famous, it will simply sag if you don’t have high level subdivision, coordination, and dynamics.

Try it with Nate Smith’s Skip Step, and it will lose tension and momentum if your lead hand technique and beat placement aren’t near-perfect.

Try it with Corey Fonville’s drum part on Christian Scott’s Twin, and unless you can layer your 8th notes 1:1 on top of the invisible matrix the bass and piano are creating, it will not only not “snap”, but create a hot mess.

So, for fun, I decided to feature those beats in today’s video. We’ll listen to the “pro” play them, we’ll dissect what makes them hard, then we’ll take you through, step-by-step, how I’d recommend playing them.

This one was transcription-heavy, so special thanks to Chris for his help with the transcription.

Hope you enjoy!

Are Drummers Today Too Obsessed With Speed?

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It’s hard to say exactly what made this “click”.

Maybe it was answering questions from commenters about “how fast should I go with xyz”.

Maybe it was my growing collection of thumbnails emphasizing specific percentage gains in speed in specific amounts of time.

But last week, the dam broke, and I made a social media post about it.

Speed is a tool for musicality.

It’s also a by-product of work on flow, idea generation, technique, etc.

But it’s become something more. It’s become the guaranteed “ring in case you need video views” tool.

And lest you think I’m calling anyone else out, I’ll own that I myself have happily availed myself of this lever. I’ll probably do it again.

But for just one video, I decided to weigh in on the contrary. To “counter balance” things.

I believe the prevalence of “get more speed” in drum instruction is out -of-pace with its utility.

If you want Andy-Prado-like chops, a large amount of that work is done slowly. (Though, yes, you eventually have to practice fast to see what “lies well” on the kit.)

And if you don’t, rest easy: the vast majority of practical drumming doesn’t require it.

But not so easy - you still have to put in the work on timing, cleanliness, and idea flow. (Doh!)

In any case, please enjoy my treatise on the state of speed in 2025.

Hope you enjoy!

The Simple Invention That's Revolutionizing Drumming (And Why)

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Drum beats had one thing constant from almost their inception until just a few years ago, and now they don’t.

Of course, I’m speaking about the snare drum.

Mainstay of “holding it down” since almost before drum kits were a thing. If you follow back to its origins, many historians credit Wynonie Harris as one of the earliest precursors. Snare on “2 and 4”.

Follow it earlier than that, to New Orleans. Snare on 2 and 4, with shades of gray, at least with press rolls.

Follow it forward: the rock age. Funk. Reggae. Electronica. Punk. Alternative rock. Modern live arrangements.

All with the snare drum as the centerpiece of the backbeat.

Until now.

I’m not saying the snare will ever go away, but increasingly, drummers are using another device as their “backbeat locus”. The stack.

But wha?

How did this seemingly-very-niche invention, by the great Trevor Lawrence in 2017/18 do what all the other drum inventions failed to do.

That includes tambourines, bells on the drums, bongos on the kick, Zil Bells, gong drums, synth pads, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Nothing doing. The snare still reined supreme.

To understand why the stack is “seeping in” to modern drum beats, in my humble opinion, we need to go back the origin of “beats” as we know them: worship songs in black churches around the turn of the century. And what do we find in recordings from that period? Hand claps.

If we take the paradigm that the snare was a “good enough” replacement for hand claps in music, it all makes sense.

Whatever else you’re doing, you have to have that “2 and 4”.

And nothing really messed with the snare when came to being a decent facsimile of the clap. (We didn’t get good synthesized claps until the early ‘80s. And synth pads are heavy, expensive, delicate to transport, and require a PA/monitor system to use.)

Until Trevor’s invention. Acoustic. Compact. Fits in a cymbal bag. Does not require amplification.

In addition to understanding how/why the stack is slowly competing with the snare for backbeat primacy, we’ll all look at some very specific beats, and ways of using it.

Hope you enjoy!

I Wish Someone Had Told Me This About Double Stoke Rolls

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It’s often the case that when we seek to understand an abstract concept, we see lots of differing opinions among “experts”. Plenty of great drummers have good double stroke rolls, so why is it that opinions vary so widely on how to teach/learn them?

That could extend to videos in which the presenter has some unorthodox learning method. Like me in the thumbnail for this week’s video. “What are the odds that all the great drummers throughout history, from Papa Jo to Tony Williams to modern greats all did this thing, and this one random guy is going to come up with something new or novel in the approach. I guess they were all wrong?”

Such is the question in my head whenever I seek to deconstruct a physical movement.

To start with, those great drummers weren’t wrong. If you can do it, there’s not much more to say. The issue comes with communication.

Imagine there’s a feeling of double strokes being right. We don’t have telepathy or Neurolink, so I can’t connect a cable from my brain to your brain to incept you with the feeling. So I have to do the next best thing: use words, and visuals.

Double strokes, and hand technique in general is especially difficult, because the movements are small, and they’re often hidden from view, inside the hand. (As opposed to, say, a golf swing.) So visuals only get you so far.

In my opinion, much of drum instruction tackles this problem by getting the student “in the territory” of correctness, then assuming if they just add reps, they’ll eventually get it.

In that paradigm, this video is just an attempt to geolocate that neighborhood more precisely. i.e. with this method, you’ll need hopefully less time to get the feeling for yourself.

We do that by focussing on the hardest part of the double stroke - what’s actually happening in the bounced double - and slowing it down, to almost infinity. In that region, the drop-catch mechanics that tons of great drummers do without thinking, but which Gordy Knudtson pointed out most effectively, are our key.

If we can increase the time between the first and the second double to infinity, we solve the most pernicious problems of double strokes: the evenness between strokes without forcing it, and the “dead zone” between articulating and bouncing.

Come with me on the journey;)

The Pro Drummer Fill Trick Most Drummers Ignore

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We spill a lot of ink and occupy gigabytes of SD cards talking about “secrets of pro drummers”, like subtle stickings that you wouldn’t see are the same unless you slowed them down, or weird “below-the-surface” muscle memory stuff you won’t understand until you feel it.

Today’s video is not about that. Today’s video is about something everybody sees great drummers do every day, then promptly forgets about when we go back to our own drumming.

I’m talking about bog-standard, stupid-simple, boilerplate, block-and-tackle subdivision changes.

Like, “use a sextuplet for once Seamus! It won’t kill ya!”

Then Seamus screams “nevaaaaaaaah!” Across his pint, then steps out into the rain and shuffles away alone, to a sad violin soundtrack. And scene. I’d like to apologize for any negative Irish stereotypes in this vignette.

But I bet if you added up the variety of subdivisions our favorite drummers use in their improvisation and compared it to the average drummer, they’re doing it way more. And I’m not saying “spam” it. Just, it’s like we all have an obvious musical tool, and they use it, and we always forget.

Why?

Well beyond simple “this is how I’ve always done it” inertia, I can think of 3 reasons. 3 reasons we’ll try to “de-claw” in this video:

• They seem faster, which is “scury”.

• They have a base of 3 or 6 instead of 2/4/8, so we worry our existing ideas won’t work.

• We worry we’ll get lost with the counting.

Beyond this, there’s also one “secret” reason people don’t think about, but which I think is actually the biggest issue. But you have to watch the video to hear about it. Woooooo.

But in all seriousness, let’s normalize the musical use of subdivision. We wouldn’t talk in monotone, at the same speed always. So why not make our playing more fluid, so we can make better music?

Hope you enjoy!

Is The Metronome Hurting Your Drumming?

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Is the metronome hurting your time?

Like many things, I think there’s an “adult” and a “pre-school” version of this discussion.

I don’t spend much time entertaining the suggestion, for instance, that a metronome “kills your natural, human feel”. The reality, in my opinion, is that our inherited time perception instincts are badly calibrated to produce danceability, filled with distortions as they are.

We rush offbeats, hemiolas, double time, and most syncopation, while we drag downbeats or sparse rhythms.

What’s more, the “natural” rhythms many cite as examples of our “innate human timekeeping” - take folkloric drumming, for example - result less from anything innate and more from decades of training, beginning in early childhood.

The “natural”/”innate” timekeeping we’re born with mostly results in boring, weighty, unreliable, at-times-frantic playing. Not very danceable.

So we use the metronome to train our perceptions so our groove listening back to our own recordings matches our perceptions in the moment/as we play. (And play along with recordings to capture that “loose”/”human” feel I argue is the result of years of training and refinement.)

But there’s an “adult” version of the argument. Can the metronome be a crutch?

Absolutely.

At first, simply because we use it on quarters for too long, and only learn to “follow”, but not to “lead”. (Plus it becomes easier to ignore.) That’s the reason for unorthodox placements like 16th offbeats and beat “4”.

But eventually, because we can become used to having it accompany us in any capacity.

So - advanced players only, use with a grain of salt. But yes - sometimes it is important to turn the metronome off and rekindle your trust of your own timekeeping. It’s something I’ve been doing increasingly lately.

For the whole in-depth argument, you’ll want to watch the video.

Hope you enjoy!

If You Don't Know This Rhythm You Won't Understand Modern Drumming

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Watch enough music and you start to notice patterns.

And the pattern that inspired today’s video was hard to ignore.

There’s this…rhythm…that underpins so much of modern drumming, and modern music. It satisfies my two major conditions to be considered “a thing”:

• 30 years ago and further back, you hardly heard it

• It’s near-ubiquitous today

Just a few examples:

What About Me, by Snarky Puppy

The Grid, by Tigran

A bunch of the prog rock catalogue, including Periphery

And I’m sure once you know what I’m talking about, that you’ll think of tons more.

It’s this syncopated, serpentine rhythm that’s hard to pin down. It feels like it should be “hemiola”, or cycling groups of 3 over the barline, but it’s not.

The answer?

5.

Not quintuplets, necessarily. Just groups of 5 notes against a quarter note.

If you’re in 5/4, than your rhythm will cycle neatly. If you’re in other meters, we need some simple math.

But that’s what you’re hearing.

Two of my favorite examples are What About Me - the chorus and subsequent drum solo section - and a VF Jams ear-worm with Devon Taylor. (Both featured in the video.)

But there’s also Tigran’s The Grid, and Dracul Gras by Periphery.

In this video, we’ll delve into 3 facets:

• Why is this suddenly everywhere (my hypothesis is musicians get bored with stuff)

• How do we play it in the simplest terms

• How do we use it practically over normal meters (and what are those song examples doing)

Once you get this pattern in your ear, modern music and modern drumming will make a lot more sense, and you might even hear some of these ideas in your own playing!

Hope you enjoy!

Self Taught Drummer? You Should Watch This

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Today's video starts with a counterintuitive truth - not every drummer needs drum lessons.

And not every drummer who might benefit from lessons needs them at every point in their development.

This may surprise you coming from a "drum coach", but the truth is I see two periods when some drummers can really benefit from having an expert check out their playing and save them "trial-and-error" steps...

...and in many other periods, they might be better off saving their money, or joining a membership site for courses, but working them on their own.

The specific periods in which I would recommend lessons to most drummers are...

...close to the beginning, when an expert can help show you the shortest path to basic proficiency and save you ending up in "local optimums" - I.e. with habits you have to unlearn in able to progress...

...and in the upper-intermediate stage, when most of the "easy wins" are out of the way so you need more specific mentorship, but you're not so advanced you can see clearly where to go and most of the time playing feels easy to you.

But what about drummers who are good candidates for being "career-long"'self-taught?

For that, if you're tremendously disciplined and organized, but also gentle with yourself and able to detach emotionally from the hard parts and see them just as "part of the process", you might be a good candidate.

We hear from some past podcast guests who embodied some of the qualities I'd consider important.

And finally, I end the lesson with some advice to drummers who choose to "go it alone".

Who should try to succeed as a self-taught drummer? And when? And if you are, what's the best way to do it?

We'll discuss all of that in today's video. Hope you enjoy!

Can You Still Enjoy Drums If You’re Not Going Pro?

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A lot of drum stuff these days is like "secrets of the pros", "how to sound more like the pros", "how to go from intermediate to pro"...

And that leaves a BIG segment of drummers out.

The biggest, actually! What if you don't want to go pro?

What if you're not trying to play in stadiums, or go on tour, or “break out”?

A couple of weeks ago I did a video called "What if you've ever thought 'I suck at drums'". In it, I was tackling stuff we all face like imposter syndrome and being overly self-critical, and how to break out of that.

One comment I got on that video hit me between the eyes. I’ll paraphrase: “For those of us who don’t want to go pro, can we still enjoy drums?”

There’s way more context and emotional content in the full quote, which I share in the video, but wow! I hate to see people suffering because they’re comparing themselves to the best-drummers-of-all-time, genuinely not knowing if their lot in life is to feel crappy every time they sit down to play.

So I recorded this video more or less off the cuff as a response.

Of course you can. But the interesting part is why.

First off, comparing ourselves to social media is bad - but not for the reason (in my opinion) you might suspect. It’s not only that we see “better” drummers and find our playing wanting by comparison. It’s that social media skews our very definition of “good”.

Next, I hadn’t quite realized how big a tribe of “high-level amateurs” exists in drumming, and how good these folks can become, and how much they can enjoy drumming.

Then it hit me: high-level amateurs exist in practically any activity.

Not all good skateboarders are Tony Hawk. Not all good skiers are Bode Miller. Not all good golfers are Tiger, not all good cyclists are Tadej Pogecar, etc. But the difference is that drums are much more solitary. Sure, we play in bands from time to time, but we don’t play drums in groups with other drummers the same way we do golf, tennis, racquetball, jiujitsu, etc.

So we don’t see this “hidden tribe” of drummers.

Finally, I play an old classic - the “threshold effect”. Yes, you’ll always be “reaching” for the next level, or chasing challenges you find interesting. But you do reach a level above which drumming feels good for the majority of the time.

So I send this out to all the drummers who want to feel good playing, but have no interest in being the next Larnell or Weckl, and are wondering if there’s a brighter day available to them.

It gets better.

Hope you enjoy!

The Cheat Code for Faster Drum Fills

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What are you supposed to say when every title you try sounds like 2015-era clickbait, but in your mind you actually, really solved, or partially solved this problem.

Where I come from, if they’re gonna call you clickbait either way, might as well get the viewz.

It’s in that spirit that I present today’s lesson - The Cheat Code for Faster Drum Fills. And it’s based on a pretty simple idea.

There’s the “old fashioned” way to increase your speed. Have your lexicon of improv vocabulary you’re practicing, and simply “bump up” the metronome a little every day. Then, something something, you’ll be able to play faster fills.

This isn’t even complete on its face.

“Why would we assume tempo is the only parameter we can play with,” an astute student in a drum lesson in that smoke-stained back room at Anthony’s Guitar Shop on East Main might ask…

…prompting his teacher to respond “SHUT UP, BILLY”.

But of course Billy is right. In software - I’ve heard on podcasts - there's the saying “you can have it cheap, you can have it bug-free, and you can have it soon. Choose two.”

It’s a pithy way to express a system with at least 3 inputs. And I’m sure we can come up with more inputs than just tempo for drum fills.

How about something like kinesthetic familiarity?

Or, the “kicker” in this case, number of things you try to play?

Take your normal 16th note improv speed. If I asked you to “double time” everything, you’d probably find it hard, right?

But what if I gave you only one lick, and asked you to double-time that?

To restate the software development adage - “you can play it fast, you can play it clean, or you can play all your vocabulary - choose two.”

By compromising on the “things to remember”, could we unlock some tempo gains?

Well, it turns out, from my experimentation at least, that we can.

That’s unsurprising. But what might blow your mind is that once we’ve added one lick to the double time regime, we can add more…

…and the time it takes to master them will, by my contention, still be less than if you’d just practiced everything linearly.

Hence “the wormhole method.”

Phew. Anyway, far from “clickbait”, I’m doing my best here to posit a genuine alternative for the accepted way to get faster.

Hope you enjoy!

The Drum Sound Fix Nobody Talks About

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John Riley Said I Was WRONG About Hand Technique

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Is This The Easiest Dennis Chambers Lick?

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Watch This if You've Ever Thought "I Suck At Drums"

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The Left Hand Skill Good Drummers Should Have in 2025

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The Simple Lick You Didn't Know Pro Drummers Were Using

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Do You HAVE To Play Rimshots on Drums?

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I Was WRONG About Jazz Drumming - Here's Why

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If You're A Serious Drummer, You Should Do This

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The Tony Williams Opinion You Might Not Like

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