Sweatband?

Or do what the gymnasts do: use honey.

Charlie D wrote:I'd suggest playing to AC/DC and Ramones records for starters. Simple ways to keep rhythm in time. Eventually (as in two days later) you're going to want something a bit more complex.

The first song I ever played on drums was "Am I Evil?" and I played that song constantly. After that I moved over to ZZ Top's Eliminator.

fedaykin, I agree with all of the play-along-with-your-favorite-songs posts, and the play-all-the-time posts. I've had exactly one hour of lessons and I've been playing for over twenty years. I don't know any rudiments, and I probably set my kit up all wrong. At times I go back and forth between taking lessons and keeping on the path I've apparently chosen. I'm probably not the best person here to speak with you concerning these things actually.

Another really good (to me) method for quiet practice that genuinely makes a difference to kit playing is...hard to describe.

Using a practice pad (or whatever you use for rudiment practice), play your rudiment, say double stroke roll and scat along with it "ba-da-ba-da" etc.

Then, keeping the same double stroke roll, cut the scatting down to "*-da*-da" etc, so you're just saying the off-beats.

Or play single stroke roll, do the "ba-da", then keep the "ba-da" as you switch to double stroke, then switch to "*-da", then try switching back and changing the "*-da" at the same time.

That's a simple example, but obviously there are a million different possibilities. Although you're using your mouth rather than your legs/arms, it really does help independence I reckon.