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Find other people to play with. Don't get stuck in a wood-shed mentality.

dontfeartheringo wrote:Take naps.Also, play along with music a lot, particularly in headphones. Really, that's how I did it.This is very true. I taught myself to play after my dad taught me the basics. I think I'm doing alright where I am going.Get some in-ear earbuds so you can hear what you're playing, and play complicated songs once in awhile so you can try some different things. Then in a few months, try them again, especially if the first time you failed miserably. I've surprised myself quite a few times this way.Try adjusting your kit different ways to see which ways you're comfortable. Also, adjust your seat a few times as well, you'd be surprised how much of a difference this makes in your endurance.Learn ways to save energy, to do things more efficiently. I personally tend to overexert myself and try to play too hard, I'm learning ways to dial it down without affecting my performance. It's hard.I made a thread about making videos of yourself playing music and uploading it to YouTube. It's proven somewhat useful because I can see what I'm doing wrong and right. Here are a few examples:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPW6B85\_ ... annel\_pageThe Knack - Let Me Out - take one on my old kit - and I nailed the opening fill, but I didn't have the endurance to finish the song without missing beats.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-do6cbk ... annel\_pageSame song, a few months and a better kit later. I still am amateur level but I think I played it a lot better than the first go-round.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeifjbBs ... annel\_pageMotion City Soundtrack - Everything is Alright - YES, I know it's Motion City Soundtrack, yes, I enjoy the song, yes, I know it's not well-liked here. It's also fun to play. This is probably my best drum video so far, in terms of nailing the original source.No, I'm not the best drummer and my technique is shit. None of that matters as long as you're enjoying yourself, unless you're really serious about gigging and being awesome at it. I just do it for fun.

I found/find rudiments to be pretty much the best thing to practise for improving your overall playing, but then I like practising them which I believe makes me a pervert.Get a silent drum pad thingy. Also, being able to vary limb dynamics independently so that you can produce loud snare hits (for example) without beating the crap out of the hihat. 99% of making the drums sound ok seems to be not beating the crap out of the hihat.Also, the Moeller technique.Also, find the right stick size for you. YouTube has HUGE amounts of great drum lessons, really, really helpful.

if you're planning to be in a (loud) band, you want to start getting use to playing harder. get use to making every quarter note on the snare a rimshot. play heel up. constantly keep your foot going on the highhat, except for when you're actually playing it. buy bigger cymbals. that sort of thing!practicing your rudiments will definitely sharpen you up for playing faster than anything else. this is probably already very obvious, but when practicing a rudiment start slow, work your way up until you're doing it as fast as you can (while still in control), and then slow things back down again.i'd also suggest only using kick/snare/highhat to start and just getting use to the sounds you can get out of those three things. then add a ride. then a crash. then a rack & a floor tom.

Try to practice putting an even layer of lighter fluid around the cymbal so that its surface tension keeps it balanced on the cymbal without cascading onto the rest of your kit.-@Buy one of those barbecue lighter guns so that you are able to keep yourself at a safe distance when lighting your cymbals on fire.-@practice outside before trying it indoors.

Get a beginners book that you can use to learn more drum notation and music theory, which also has a range of beats in it. Try Alfred's series. Then, get a metronome and play the beats to it. Challenge yourself to play the beats a certain speed(slow for a long time) with the as much relaxation as possible. Then, when you feel very confident that you can play the beat with relaxed muscles at that speed, move the metronome up to the next higher speed or two. Keep like this to build up endurance, speed and confidence.Also, begin being creative immediately. Start coming up with your own beats. Fool around with whatever you hear in your head and express it on the kit. If you hear melodies, try and recreate them on the toms. Then, form a repeating one or two bar pattern out of all or a portion of that melody to create a cool beat. Practice it with the metronome. If you don't hear melodies, just mess around with hitting various drums and letting the different sounds excite you and you'll eventually come up with a simple, creative pattern that you can turn into a really fucking cool beat. If you have a brain tumor or a migraine and all you hear in your head is white noise, then put in earplugs and play with the cymbals. Incorporate that noise into a cool beat using the toms and kick. Most of all, just remember that when you're being creative like this, forget the rules in the book. You can apply them later. It's a really beautiful thing to be first learning. You have no filter and you can explore everything with a clean view. Try everything and don't feel like it's wrong or off or silly. It's all valid as long as it excites you. Playing with other people is also important. Try to find one other person. Sometimes that works best at first.Pay attention to your feet. Don't neglect your foot work. A lot of beginners focus on the hands and forget the feet.

I'd say play along with your favorite drummers/bands on headphones first, before you start playing with other human beings, if you are in fact JUST starting out. Just to get you comfortable with the idea of playing to different tempos, section changes, how the basics of drumming operate, etc.That being said, go through the music you are interested in and make a mental note of the levels of difficultly, and start simple. It's a deceptive thing, though, so be careful. Some drummers seem very simplistic, only to be very subtle with their virtuosity.Also, this is just my personal view on the world of music here: WHO you play along with is going to create parts of your style. The drummers that you admire and emulate will become part of who you are as a musician. If you play along to Jim White, or Mac McNeilly, or John Stanier, etc, you are going to essentially be taking "lessons" from them, albeit through emulation not direct instruction. Great musicians stand alone: When you hear them play, you instantly know who they are. I would personally say that you should play along to people that you feel move you in some way, or get your shit excited. It will shape how you approach the drums, and ultimately how you play. Stay away from "how to" CDS and books, click tracks, and jazz instructors...they'll try to turn you on to Dave Weckl.Some of my favorite recordings that I started out with:Breeders "Pod" Stooges "Fun House"any early Talking Headsfirst 3 WIRE recordings

Play with kick, hat and snare only.Tune those two drums so that it's a pleasure to hear yourself play.You may find that your rhythmic sensibility is far more ambitious than your limbs. Use a drum machine (as far as software goes, FruityLoops is good, Hydrogen is decent and free) to come up with some interesting sounding stuff, and learn how to play the parts on your kit.You'll probably find the intricacies of snare technique (finger bounces, etc.) are maddeningly counterintuitive. You might be able to nail this stuff from watching YouTube videos, but I couldn't. If you want to be able to play buzz rolls, etc., someone is probably going to have to show you in person.

Learn how to lead with the left as strong as you lead with the right. Also, if you wanna go bonkers with it, set up your kit left-handed, the mirror image of "normal", and learn to play it as a lefty would play it. When you switch it back to right-handed, you'll be the better for it. And it'll make leading with your left a breeze.

Quit your job.