Another question...musical practice vs technical practice...how to balance them...this is by no means a complete answer, but I ran out of time...Please don't hesitate to send your questions to me via email @ littlesteviedrums@yahoo.com or stephen@LoversandLiars.com...or through Twitter @ http://twitter.com/drummeretc ...or on my YouTube channel @ www.youtube.com/DrummerEtc ...or on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/#!/StephenTaylor81 ...I think that's all of them ;^)
Question:
For the longest time, I only practiced technical stuff, and about a year ago I just stopped playing technical stuff and just played music. and now i cant do technical stuff, but just musical stuff. What do you suggest I do to have a good balance?
Answer:
Ah, the age old question...technicality vs musicality...accommodating the music while satisfying your need to play a 32 note roll at 180 bpm...nice question...I can only answer things from my viewpoint and experience, and they say advice is worth what you pay for it...that being said...
I think every drummer (or musician for that matter) worth their weight struggles with this very question...how much time do I need to spend focusing on expanding my technical skills as a player and how much time should be allotted to practical and musically applicable skills. As much as we'd all love to play in a band that allows us to stretch like Mike Portnoy does in Dream Theatre (or should I say DID...in case you missed that memo, he left the band...), that's just not the reality of it. We as drummers tend to alot a large majority of our practice time to attaining what we view as impressive skills but what everyone else views as annoying occurrences. I think the whole discussion boils down to how you view your playing and music and simple prioritization.
Let's start with the prioritization part...If you want to play professionally as a drummer, you'll need to make money...to do that, you'll need a certain set of skills that allow you to survive on a gig...i.e. you need to play musically, know a wide range of material, understand what an appropriate fill for that chosen genre would sound like, etc. Basically, the nuts and bolts of what we do. So I actually try and keep a practice log...If I have 2 hours to practice, it might look something like this...
30 minutes of groove studies (practical groove studies...like Gary Chesters book, or playing along to "Brick House" until it feels danceable).
30 minutes of rudiments and trying to apply them to the drumkit.
30 minutes of coordination and facility on the drumkit work.
30 minutes of impressive, melt your face, grow 3 extra arms type of drumming.
The problem we often feel is that we're not improving enough in one area quickly enough...but I'd rather improve slowly and evenly in all areas than be able to play 5 over 4 and get fired from a gig for not knowing "Ain't To Proud To Beg"...
Which leads directly into the next discussion of how you view your playing...
I used to segment all of my playing and practicing...I had my work stuff, my technical stuff and never should the two meet. It wasn't until I realized WHY I was working on the technical stuff that things began to come into focus...
All of the time you put into advancing your technical proficiency is for one purpose and one purpose only...to serve the music. I had to stop viewing them separately. Here's how I do it nowadays...
I work on something extremely technical just for fun...after I have it down, I start to search for areas I can use this particular skill within the musical confines of the situation I'm playing in. Tony Williams was the master at doing this...some of the Miles Davis stuff sounds so smooth and musical...but once you dissect what Tony was actually doing, you begin to realize that the things he was playing were frickin' hard! He had taken the time to look into the music and see where he could use his vast vocabulary in the most musical manner possible. Vinnie does the same thing...so does Steve Smith...and so many others...
So I guess the simple answer is, prioritize your practice time to include technical as well as musical items...and begin to view your playing not as technical vs musical...but just drumming. One leads to the other and the other leads to the one...
3 comments:
Great topic. I've always viewed the two (technical proficiency and musicality) as interrelated. The technical proficiency allows you to get the "stuff in your head" out to your hands and feet or, in other words, manifest your ideas on the drum set. Most of the music I play does not require serious chops, so when I'm learning a new song or playing a gig, I continue to work on making the groove feel right. During my limited practice time - since, unfortunately, drumming is not my occupation - I work on improving the abilities of my hands and feet. The practicing gives me the ability to play the individual parts of any song I may need to learn, whereas the band practice and gigging allows me to continue improving my musicality without worrying about whether or not I'll be able to execute grooves or fills correctly.
Great article.
Brian
You're absolutely right Brian...to many drummers view their technical playing as separate from their practical gigging knowledge...my goal is to get them to understand that the reason we as drummers practice and grow is so that we can transfer that knowledge directly to a gigging situation...Alot of the exercises I practice will never show up on a gig, but the concepts and facility I get from them DOES show up on the gig...thanks for contributing!
And I think everyone has limited practice time...there's a little thing called "life" that tends to get in the way! Oh for the days of college when I practiced 8 hours a day! Sheer bliss...-S
Great post and well worth a discussion. I always start my practices by working on speed and strength exercises (slower tempo exercises come under the strength heading in my opinion) This approach sets me up to be dynamic and flexible throughout the rest of my practice.
I think the natural inclination for beginners is to get bored with these sort of exercises that don't automatically translate into strong grooves, but like Audiyo said, the concepts and facility you get from practicing them does show up in performance.
Of course, there does need to be a balance between rudimentary exercises and groove practice, and I don't think theres hard and fast rules for what 'balance' is exactly.
I like your concept of the two types of practice not being in competition with one another, they are part of the whole.
I've written a little bit about what goes into a good practice on my site http://www.thelandsrumbled.com/read/what-you-need-to-practice
Before now I didn't realize that people were at odds about whether to practice technical stuff versus practical stuff. I just thought people lacked general guidance about what to practice.
Thanks for the post man, cheers.
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