Prioritise

In this age of left foot clave and MPO’s-that’s multi pedal orchestrations to you and I, it’s easy to feel that unless you’re able to do all of the stuff the next drummer is able to play that you’re not good enough. As a result you could easily overlook some much more important aspects of playing. For example I recently had the pleasure of working with a great young drummer who could play some impressive MPO’s(!) yet couldn’t phrase a simple rhythmic line on the snare drum using single strokes. The best way to know what you need to practice is to play music regularly. This may sound obvious but in this day of DVDs and backing tracks you easily find yourself locked away in your own practice environment that’s somewhat removed from the real world. Note: If you’re intending to become a drum clinician playing MPO’s this is fine. However if you want to be a drummer that other people enjoy playing with you might want to make sure that the fundamentals are in place first and listening to yourself playing music is perhaps the best way of doing this.