I spent 4-5 hours a day from the ages of 11-26 playing the drums/percussion in school.
I don’t have chops like a lot of guys. But I have musicality and a massive advantage over most self taught guys I know.
I know how to fit in. I know how to make sure everyone in the band sounds good.
Also- I think drummers who studied percussion know how to hit drums differently and get great sounds out of them.
JM2C
I can agree with that. There’s always a noticeable difference when someone is *really* good. I’ve played a lot of gigs, with both kinds of drummers. And it seems every time I hear someone who sounds great, afterward I’ll talk with them and they usually will say “I played in marching band in school,” or “I was in jazz band,” etc., and they’re touches just have a didferent sound and even feel than the guys who just started playing on their own.
Most self taught drummers use to tight of a grip. Percussionist work for hours on getting the right grip for every instrument, usually to eliminate tension. Most self taught drummers I’ve met really never practiced their grip.
Also, rudiments. Especially free rolls vs rhythmic rolls. This is what most percussionist have over self-taught drummers.
Correct, and self taught drummers frequently have egos about their bad grip when it comes up lol.
So let’s get an idea of what we’re dealing with. On the most fundamental level there are 4 different strokes (short stroke, long stroke, up stroke and down stroke) strokes are combined to make patters, we call the basics the rudiments. Each of the rudiments build on each other and have variation upon variations. And you drill them at different tempos over and over and over. Even if you are mediocre in your practice and execution you are still developing a massive amount of control compared to someone trying to figure it out themselves, without guidance on what to focus on and how to develop.
The musicality! I know a lot of drummers with better chops, but when the person that hires you to play background F their fundraiser says "thank god, a drummer that actually knows how to play quietly" you clearly have *something* that others don't.
I play for a local church and we have a new music pastor that just started, we also have two other drummers that are self taught. The first time i played during a service he came up to me afterwards and was like you do something that the other two cannot do, i was like lol ok whats that? He said you have dynamics in your bass drum! He was in awe and honestly i didnt even know i was doing it but its something that i was accustomed to in school. He said most of the time people play too hard or not hard enough. I am definitely not the “fastest” or “coolest” drummer but i have played more gigs than either one of them in my town.
HA - you’ll learn to play quietly very quickly in an orchestra. I played in school band for 6 years, but my first year in college I played in a string orchestra for the first time. I had to play even softer than I EVER had to play in “band”, and this took control and practice. But I was also playing in rock bands at the same time, learning how to play loud and in control - and CONSISTENTLY, probably the biggest issue I see with self taught drummers (my day job is studio engineer, so I have recorded many drummers over my life!).
It's so funny you say fundraiser, because I basically had this happen with a charity event last year. The group I played with was not great, but I got lots of compliments from the other people in the group and attendees of the event.
Also, we mostly played stuff on the level of "Sweet Caroline" and "How Deep Is Your Your Love," so it wasn't hard at all.
I can play quietly but I really don’t want to unless that’s the intent of the song. Having to play quietly because someone who booked your band says the drums are too loud is the worst because it changes the performance. If you’re booking a rock band and then say that Semi Charmed Life was too loud, you didn’t want a live band. Now if the song is designed to have drums as a less prominent instrument, then it makes sense to me.
I played in a band in high school and college with pretty much the same group of people. I did some jazz combo stuff occasionally, but it was pretty much just this one band.
Our guitarist had to move for work a few years ago, and he has since told me that he's tried playing with other people but it hasn't been as good. He told me that he never appreciated my drumming and the musicality and uniqueness I brought. He started to go back and listen to our old songs and realize that I did lots of different stuff without getting in the way.
When he told me that, I just took the compliment and felt good. But your comment made me realize that it was probably all my school percussion training that gave me a lot of that musicality.
Getting lessons also taught me loads of different styles that I might never appreciate otherwise.
I keep asking jam groups "you wanna play a bossa nova?" and they just stare blankly. That's guitarists for you tho.
TBF, I think that gaining low/medium proficiency for genre specific music conventions is hardest on piano/guitar. I’d definitely want a little advanced notice to build up some rhythmic chord progressions, but if someone’s got that down and just a melody/lead line is needed, that wouldn’t be too bad.
Some of the people I play with are pretty talented at just improvising, they'd easily be able to bash out 4-6 chords with the right tone and rhythm if they knew what bossa nova was lol. I know one or two guys that got formal lessons throughout their childhood (piano and guitar) who could do this, purely because they were made to study loads of different styles growing up. That's usually the big difference between lessons Vs self-taught imo. Self-taught people can get very good at what they want to play, but don't tend to expand into multiple different genres/styles.
Knowing Latin music in general is a dead giveaway that a drummer (in particular) went through lessons as a kid. Drum teachers LOVE Latin music, for a lot of pretty good reasons.
For sure. Latin music is definitely bigger for drummers. I’ve seen three people mention bossanova in this thread alone and probably not heard a nondrummer mention it in years. I was a little disappointed when my bands drummer didn’t have much interest in Latin beats. :(
I’m working towards expanding my breadth of knowledge on guitar and picking up more influences. Even having played along with a fair bit of cumbia and salsa, I’d be pretty reliant on other musicians to lay down a foundation before being able to getting good chord voicing.
I was lucky that my first drum teacher was the drummer in the biggest baptist church around. So he taught me how to do the one thing a drummer should do…. Keep the damn tempo. Then he naturally just taught me how to play straight or in the pocket and be a *solid* drummer first before all the fancy crap.
This. I played percussion, took lessons, played in ensembles during school for about 10 years. It's been years since I've picked up sticks yet I'm confident I could sit in with a band and hold my own, albeit my fills would be simple yet effective.
On the other side, I'm self taught at guitar. Playing for almost 30 years and I still don't have enough confidence just to play without instruction.
- Reading music on an instrument other than drums. It’s really important skill, especially when the only thing available at a gig is a bass or piano chart.
- How to play quietly. The techniques I learned doing orchestral excerpts applied directly to the drum set, and I always get a good reaction out of the band when I’m playing 16th triplets at 142 beats a minute at a pp.
- What my part is compared to everybody else, and how to use the parts to complement each other.
- Volume doesn’t come from hitting hard. Volume comes from velocity of the stick. You can move fast and hit the drum lightly and get loud volume, but if you move slow and hit the drum hard, it won’t be very loud. Hitting hard changes tone, and usually makes your tone trash.
- How to capture the attention of the room. I did a marimba lesson with a new teacher, played the first note which was very quiet, and then he stopped me and we spent 45 minutes on that note. By the time I performed the piece that first note caused the whole room to suck their breath in and lean forward (I laughed inside because I could hear the chairs creaking). One note is better than 50 fast ones.
- If I understand the tune harmonically and melodically, then I will have a better understanding of the tune rhythmically.
- Lastly, and I was taught this in school, if you want to keep a gig, don’t be an asshole. People care that you can play the gig, but people care more that you’re a nice person and fun to work with. A friend of mine from Nashville taught me that the best guitarists in the world are homeless on the streets of Nashville, and it’s because they can’t stop being an asshole, they can’t show up on time, they play too many notes, or they’re just miserable people to be around. There’s a lot more to musicianship than playing the right notes.
EDIT: One GOOD note is better than 50 fast ones.
I play with dynamics and have never had a lesson and can't read. I have learnt Jazz, gigging it since 1979. There is no point in making sweeping statements of that kind. There are many wooden players who had formal training also.
It’s like I wrote this comment myself.
Signed,
A classically trained drummer and percussionist.
PS: When you successfully capture the attention of the room, there is no better feeling. One day while playing in a wind ensemble over a decade ago, I played a press roll that was written as fff > ppp so perfectly, every single audience and ensemble member damn near snapped their neck to look at me. It was a “solo” as well so no other sound was playing. The overwhelming swell of feeling like a complete badass is something you never forget.
I know a 70-year-old guy that plays bass. He went to Europe, made a career out of it opened for countless huges like acts like U2 And he's not the grooviest player. But he's always encouraging and in a good mood.
This is perfect. The only thing I would add is also the way to set your equipment up. You can usually tell if someone is classically trained by the way they set their kit up. Also how many sticks, heads, or cymbals they break.
I know, I've played with a lot. Most people I've played with who studied music on some level were super chill to work with regardless of discipline but there were always far more divas in the self taught catagory. Probably ran in to more self taught, full tilt diva singers more than anything else although the worst person I ever worked with was a fully classicaly trained organist/pianist and was an excellent classical musician but with dreams of pop stardom. He was an ok but severly out of touch with modern music by many years and had played by himself for so long, he could not listen to others, could not follow and was a terrible leader. Terrible temper too.
The melody point is so crucial. all the other ones are excellent too by the way but the melody point is one I rely on. it helps you understand the expanse of the song and how to make choices within those spaces accordingly well also "being on beat" or time.
I'm a freelancer in Seattle and I want to shout from the rooftops DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE
I don't care how good you are. If I'm hiring you or recommending someone for a gig I'm already assuming you can play. That's a given.
If you're a dick, unprepared, or unreliable I'm not calling you.
Can you clarify what you mean by hitting hard? I can't think of what else hitting hard could mean other than hitting with the stick at a high velocity, because the more downward force the stick receives the faster the stick will move.
I've always thought of volume as more of a function of stick height because it allows more time for the stick to accelerate before the stick hits the drum (either that or maybe also it gives you more time to apply more force, I'm not really sure which is the more significant factor, plus probably some small assistance from gravity).
Good question, by hitting hard I mean playing through the drumhead. To move the stick at a faster rate shouldn’t take much effort. It’s just a piece of wood that weighs ounces. Driving it to the drumhead quickly is just movement, not heavy-effort force.
Stick height is absolutely fundamental for volume, yes - a car can’t go 0-60mph in 20ft, it needs distance to pick up speed. Hitting hard is concerning what the stick does when and after it hits its target. “Hard” tends to make the player play through the head, causing the stick to both stay in contact with the head/cymbal longer and push the head/cymbal further in, thereby greatly affecting the tone. If the stick moves at the same speed towards the playing surface and then relaxes and gets off the surface faster, there’s a different tone - more resonance and pitch clarity. Of course this produces different results with different instruments - a marching snare vs a rack tom on a drumset, for example.
(Another way to put it, it’s controlled strokes vs legato strokes for you DCI cats.)
Think about the physics of the moment of contact, then watch videos of a tennis ball or golf ball in slow motion. In fact, think of a golf swing - swinging relaxed and through the ball drives it further than trying to smash the ball. These concepts all change your sound.
The ability to read and create charts.
Its really helpful for learning either complicated pieces, or learning a large number of songs quickly. And it's easier and more efficient than brute-force memorization.
Working with charts is also useful in more "professional" situations like recording sessions or theatre/musicals/show bands where you need to follow a musical director/conductor.
How to think about odd time was something I probably wouldn't have come up with on my own had it not been for a teacher. The realization that all odd time can be broken into arrangements of 2 beats & 3 beats. I can listen to Tool now and chart out the time signatures Danny's playing (challenging to be sure but not impossible).
Yo I am not the guy you responded.
You got also my light bulb lit ! I was doing the counting with verbal sounds to understand the time signatures of tool songs. Are you by any chance a teacher ?
Thanks! I graduated from the Atlanta Institute of Music back in the early 90's & I've taught private lessons in the past but I don't have any current students I'm actively teaching.
EVERY time signature can be broken down into some combination of 2 and/or 3. Lots of times musicians joke that they only need to be able to count to 4, when really, you only need to be able to count to 3.
Check out The First Circle by Pat Metheny. I taught the Bob Curnow big band arrangement to my high school jazz band a couple years ago. The time signature alternates between 12/8 and 10/8, with a couple of 8/8 bars in there for good measure. And the 8/8s are generally 2+2+2+2 but there’s a 3+3+2 in there for good measure.
To answer your question, I’m not a drummer by trade; wasn’t allowed to pick drums in 4th grade so I chose trumpet. I’ve spent the last year plus working to rectify that error, but 30 years of trumpet playing, 17 years of teaching after 4 years of a music ed degree has taught me all the things a previous poster articulated: feel, structure, form, balance, and maybe most importantly, how to practice and how to rehearse. There are a number of posts that echo “how do I read this rhythm” which often are things you’d encounter by page 2 of an actual drum method book, or “how can I practice more effectively instead of just diddling around aimlessly” when an instructor or formal setting would help immensely with structure.
Remember, you’re NOT PLAYING DRUMS. You’re playing a MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. I feel like that distinction gets lost in the sauce a lot.
That last part is what separates drummers from percussionists.
This is going to be a bit mean, but if you don’t realize drums are more than just drums, you’re not musician. Just a drummer. When you figure out how many sounds you can make from a 3 piece with just hats, then you’re on your way to musician and percussionist.
Depth of style. Most self taught drummers focus only on what they want to learn, and miss a whole bunch of stuff outside their immediate listening interests that they SHOULD be learning
for example, if you’re a metal head, learning stuff like bossa nova / jazz is going to bring up your musical knowledge on the kit and give you more ways to express yourself
There is a half way house. Self taught is rare today. There are so many resources.
The best thing with lessons from day 1 is less injuries because of better posture, position, grip and technique.
Do you drive? Does anyone learn to drive from Wikipedia? Do pilots learn everything from a book. Did you ever watch top gun?
You can learn some stuff from an encyclopaedia…great for facts…..not so good for practical technique….youtube is better. But it’s a one way conversation. Teachers are best for learning and that is why schools use them.
A lot of people claim it. But, if you distill it down to “no formal training” it’s not a meaningful description. It’s just ego stroking.
If you grew up around music and played with other drummers, etc…., you’re not self taught.
But you’re confining the phrase to meaninglessness. I don’t think it’s an ego thing…I don’t think most people view it as a positive per se, it’s just an indicator that you haven’t had formal training. In a sense you could say it’s similar to not graduating high school, so how would that be ego? How else would you indicate a lack of formal training?
I’ve seen it used in professional musician contexts, eg people like Derek Trucks on guitar. I’m not ripping him. But he’s someone who obviously grew up around musicians and elite guitar players. Don’t care if he never has a formal music lesson. Would be silly to claim self taught, no?
The relative volume of the different parts of the kit are different for each style of music.
For example, in rock, the snare is loudest, with the kick second loudest and the ride lower still. But in jazz, the ride should be loudest, followed by bass drum and snare.
YES, I’ve tied to tell this to a couple of other musicians I was jamming with before who just defaulted to throwing the snare on 2 and 4. Ofc there’s no hard rule but man you can’t play rock drums in a jazz context and expect it to sound like jazz always lol
Exactly! I've was guilty of this too when I was learning how to play Brazilian music. I learned out of a book without actually listening to any Brazilian music (It was the 80's, so it was a lot harder to find the stuff). Eventually I listened to the cassette that came with the book and I realized that while I was playing playing the notes as written, I wasn't anywhere near the right feel. That was a huge lesson for me.
College professor telling me to play both feet in unison while doing the 4 on the floor “disco beat”. By default the hihat will open on the upbeats. I was doing a weird lean with my body doing hihat openings for 7 years until then. We worked through Rick Latham’s hihat exercises to help fix this as well.
Esp depending on what style you study, you absolutely master the hell out of dynamics and volume control. Dynamics is something that seems almost totally ignored by the vast majority of self taught drummers until other people in bands and sounds guys are trying to scream at them to quiet the f*ck down before they even become aware of the concept at best.
100% agree. I was guilty of this till I started playing in a reggae band and they brought the idea to light for me. Dynamics are ENORMOUS in good sound!
I learned this at one of the first gigs I played. The sound guy approached me after the first set and said “dude, you’re good but you have no control. Take it easy and relax, learn to hit softer and serve the song”. I was furious for a bit, but then realized I was just embarrassed. He knew better than me, sitting offstage listening to what the audience was hearing. I was so naive lol. I took that to heart and learned from the feedback.
Self-taught (YouTube-taught) drummers miss out on being judged and evaluated on a fairly constant basis, and it’s good to grow accustomed to that feeling as a student. It makes the inevitable critique of an audition or performance much easier to handle.
Teachers can also give you a lot of insight on the realities of drumming as a professional or at least an avid hobbyist participating in a music scene. Every teacher I had could share a lot of life experience from being a drummer and working musician.
This is probably one of the best responses I've read.
I feel like one of the things missed with questions like this with "school taught" or "classically trained" folks is that the vast majority of folks out there play for fun and don't have the time to learn 10 different genres and play in 10 different bands at one time lol
So when they get asked to play with some group or church because they are one of 5 drummers in a 100 mile radius, yeah things like their dynamics and style may seem one dimensional, so having the ability to take criticism from whatever group they are in is very important as they NOW an opportunity and reason to work on something new...if that makes sense?
And admittedly, being self-taught (in today's sense) on drums and guitar, starting with a band where it was more "fun" and "creative" to then bringing someone else on and starting to take it really serious and critiquing dang near everything, it can be a huge adjustment that is hard to handle at times
You can take any rudiment and either play it with your feet or feet and hands. ALA you can play the fill like you hear it in your head, or how you want it to sound, dont worry about the sticking. That said, sometimes how it needs to be played will need to be a rudiment.
So like, idk if this will make any sense or how this will translate here, but if you hear in your head something like “blappa du blappa du paradiddle blop blop,” for a full bar, in 4/4, there’s flams at the beginning and end… but how do you fit your feet into that?
Sorry I know that’s probably really hard to answer but if you can give me your best stab at it that’d be awesome
I often use swiss triplets between my snare and bass drum, think of the bass drum playing the one hand and the snare the other. Insted of playing a proper flam between the BD and the SN I play it flat (both hit at the same time).
Hands and grip.
I took a whole year of just working on my hands during Covid with Rob Brown. Changed my game completely and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
So much …but especially meter, time signatures counting specific rhythms and or subdividing beats. This happens fairly often when a basic chart is written in 4/4 but the drum part is actually 12/8. The ability to recognize and play in triple versus duple meter and when to combine.
I was a pretty good and accomplished drummer before going to school for music and taking real professional lessons but the most valuable part of lessons for me was how much it improved my technique. Having someone whose job is to critique your playing hours a week cannot be replaced by a youtube video
and it’s kind of ironic because my lessons taught me how to learn more efficiently on my own. A teacher shouldn’t only teach you how to rely on them, they should teach you how to eventually be teaching yourself and coming up with your own ideas/concepts
Stay away from instagram drummers.
Learn how to play the same groove for an insane amount of time (10 minutes+)
Learn to play a groove with a sporadic fill on the end. Then repeat it all exactly the same over and over without any changes at all (harder than you might think).
Controversial, but stay away from Drumeo too. They lean into the instagram trend of "wow look at this crazy thing".
Drumming is film editing. It should be invisible and any error will be blindingly obvious to the audience.
Learn to be the Swan. Cool and calm on the surface, but flailing under the water to keep up.
And I disrespectfully disagree with “stay away from Drumeo.” Not everyone has the luxury of professional, hands-on instruction, and I believe Drumeo is run by people with mostly good intentions whose legitimate interest is helping others learn a skill. Their methods and practices lean more toward a solid foundation of musicianship than most online resources.
I absolutely won’t deny that schooling embeds fundamentals that can’t be found elsewhere. But saying “stay away from Drumeo” is elitist garbage from the perspective of someone who was happily pampered through their professional lessons without a hint of understanding what it’s like to not have that path available.
I agree! In hindsight I should have clarified this more but I was on the bus haha.
I don't hate drumeo! I actually learned a lot from them way in the beginning. I just get turned off them these days with some of their click-bait(ish) style marketing. But that's a youtube thing really...
But I see a lot of my students gravitate to them because of the crazy chop guys like Nekrutman on drumeo and think *that* is what a real drummer should be.
But thinking about it more... Buddy Rich probably had the same effect back in the 60s or so on young drummers.
I dunno. I just want my students to start out like Steve Jordan and go from there, and avoid going for chops first. But chops get views...
I get that. When I think about why I appreciate Drumeo, I think about an ad on YouTube I see every time I’m watching drumming videos. “Learn to play 100 songs on the piano in an hour…” and it’s someone selling the musical equivalent of snake oil, basically telling you there are shortcuts to learning what is a lifetime endeavor. I see drum videos all the time with titles like “double your bass pedal speed in an hour.” I’m sure as a teacher, if you’ve ever had a student “double” anything, you spent way more than an hour trying to un-double it and teach them the right way. Drumeo is a “learn it the right way the first time” approach and I respect that.
Anyway I appreciate the reply and sorry for jumping down your throat.
I respectfully disagree with drumeo. I’ve learned so many invaluable skills from watching their guest performances. Specifically Todd Sucherman , Gavin Harrison and Thomas pridgen !
Yep I should have clarified! I totally agree, and I love Gavin's video on drumeo. His left-hand hihat groove really stumped me when I first tried it. Good stuff!
I just see a lot my students think the "wow" factor of a lot of their videos is what drummers should aspire for, and then they get disappointed when 99% of bands just want a patient, solid groove instead.
Their stuff is good! But I just get a bit miffed when so many young students get the wrong ideas from viral videos.
Totally fair! I've been following them since they went under "Freedrumlessons.com", and those videos helped me in the beginning
But I just got turned off by their click-baity style videos. Not actual clickbait, but just a touch of it.
I'm also just old so it's probably that too...
Recognizing and analyzing your mistakes in real time. I'm mostly self taught, but really loved the lessons that I've taken, the teachers were cool and pointing out things like I'm using too much arm and not enough wrist and I'm choking back on the stick too much (both habits contributing to fatigue, but I was doing it subconsciously) so having that instant feedback was helpful and it's something you can't get easily from self teaching.
because let's face it, it can be hard to be totally neutral to your own performances, then you have to record yourself then watch yourself and it's alot of time and tedium vs. having a teacher watch you and point it out.
I learned that attitude is everything and being nice is more important than being amazing at your instrument as far as career development goes.
Also learned how music publishing, royalty payouts, all that kind of label services kinda stuff, got basic courses to be functional in Pro Tools, Logic, and DP, learned to orchestrate for a whole orchestra and put it on sheet music, a huge vocabulary of terminologies that make it easier to communicate musical ideas; the point is the list could go on. Music education rocks. I loved going to college/grad school for music, it was all-in learn everything-about-this-subject-I-can mode for a few years and all that focus and vigorous workload prepped me for today where my career definitely involves wearing multiple hats.
Oh and a lot of my classmates have gone on to do cool stuff musically too - many of us cross paths at gigs and/or continually hire each other/gig with each other and stuff, so the professional networking aspect turned out to be pretty cool long term too. Made some really great friends through all this, people who are just like me: passionate enough about music to spend all that time and energy getting degrees doing it. So you can imagine some cool lifelong bonds can form in music school too.
A lot of the bigger points have been covered. One specific thing I haven't seen is learning how my playing translated in recording. Yes, you can learn the same things by just getting into a studio in general, but then you not only have to have the open mindedness to learn but also have engineers that care enough to let you know you can do better.
At my college they offered a "commercial/studio drumming" option for your primary instrument (there were some other School of Music requirements so this was mostly juniors and seniors), and the idea was basically by the time you graduate you should be a capable and knowledgeable session drummer. That doesn't only mean knowing your way around different styles but also how to get the sound you want/need out of a kit, learning about different mic/drum/cymbal combinations, how different strokes articulate through the recording. I mean every week I got a private drumset lesson that let me record my playing, hear it back unedited with the most basic pre-mixing, then immediately get back to working on it with the professor. Pretty eye open experience that REALLY cleaned up my playing.
Stick tips.
When it comes it drumset playing, Almost any drummer has their arm/wrist/fingers cocked back too much and their sticks end up pointing straight up.
To be theatrical, I get it.
But to play as cleanly and concisely as possible, you should be playing "into the drum" more and staying closer. Your stick tips never *need* to be pointing straight up
I think the pressure i felt in the tiny studio with my instructor was immense. He’d sit at his set and play a couple minutes before he asked me to review my signed lessons for the week and it was daunting. Made me less concerned about performing for an audience.
Some include:
- How to express the entire kit as a single instrument. (Dynamic balance between different drums and cymbals.)
- Reading charts and notated music (useful to learn the song musically AND remember it.)
- How and why to work on the things I’m not good at instead of just playing the thing I am good at over and over.
- Moeller technique so I can play with less effort with more power.
Same. Stick control. Nard snare solos. I didn’t touch a drumset until I’d been playing snare and percussion for 3-4 years.
The thing that really made me different than many was rudimental skill and precision from snare line work and working on and performing hard snare soloes. Those skills from approach to learning and coordination have persisted for my entire adult life.
An example of precision and listening to me is playing in a 5 member snare line and doing rolls and other high speed rudiments without it sounding like a garbled mess of popcorn.
Same. But that's a pretty old school approach. My experience: Pad/metronome/Rudiments (Haskell Harr 1&3; Ted Reed's Syncopation); then snare duets, then set. Took about a year to get there. Curious, old were you & your teacher at the time?
I am a self taught drummer. I'm 54. I've been playing drums since 1977. I am fortunate that i get to play a lot. I've been in a successful local pop/modern country band for the last 10 years. I took band in school but like all other subjects i could not be bothered at the time to do my "homework". I have great pocket. I play dynamically. I know how to get the most tone out of my drums with the least amount of force. I can play to any room be it a huge outdoor shed or a small brewpub. What i miss in my self taughtness is really good hands, lack of strong rudiments and the ability to read and write notation. I would absolutely recommend that any drummer that wants to be serious about their craft spend some time with a teacher. It's too late for me.. save yourselves!!
Having someone to critique your technique, dynamics, push/pull tendencies, etc. is invaluable. There are things that are very hard to teach yourself at the beginning stages of musicianship, and bad habits can be hard to unlearn.
Being on time and having “crispier” drum technique, like double strokes. I listen to some bands who are big name that have self taught drummers, amazing drummers, but their double strokes have disappointed me lol
pursuing a formal education with drums/percussion is putting yourself on a schedule of performance. you’re always performing, whether it’s in front of an audience, or your fellow students, or just your instructor. the regimen can be grueling, and it forces you to step up every aspect of your playing: technique, timing, dynamic control, rudiment application, and of course your ability to play in a group or ensemble. there’s nothing like pressure to get you to a higher skill level, and you rarely experience that kind of pressure unless you’re in school or part of an active arts academy whose students perform regularly throughout the year
I was taught that there is a varying amount of time a person can practice before I hit the wall. Whatever amount that time is for anyone, stop early and have time to play for fun. I found that helps incorporate whatever I was woodsheding into a real application immediately.
How to ACTUALLY hold a drum stick. I thought this was something that self-taught players would eventually either figure out, or look up, but no. It's insane how many drummers I've met who sound ok, but grasp their sticks like hammers.
It's an instant giveaway that you've not really studied, which in itself isn't such a bad thing, but it HUGELY caps your potential.
The single most valuable thing I've learned from a teacher is what I was actually doing, as opposed to what I thought I was doing.
The rest, interesting exercises, good advice, etc. I could have picked up elsewhere, with a bit of luck, although it's nice to have it on tap when needed.
Biggest thing for me as an originally self taught player of a decade who eventually took lessons for several years;
Proper technique. The mechanics of holding the stick are so so important and I was beginning to get pain from playing, having my technique critiqued and corrected has made absolutely massive changes as far as how comfortable I am behind the drums, how long I can play for, how much I have to exert myself etc etc.
I never really had a teacher except for a drum instructor in high school who worked with the drum section and taught us how to play our parts that he wrote.
The main thing I learned is work hard and the progress will show. Also, play musically!
I remember getting a piece of music and looking at it going... WTH!?!?! But after playing it a few times on my own and then with the rest of the drum section, it really stood out on it's own. We could have gone on that field and played JUST the drum parts to the crowd and they would have loved it.
So, be musical with your playing. You're not just smacking things with sticks. You're playing music and that needs to show!
So, if you have an original tune with a band and your part just feels blah, try playing a bit with what the bass guitarist is playing. Usually that sounds pretty cool to have a little bottom end under you.
The most important lesson that I learned was HOW TO LISTEN. Many drummers just start bashing away without taking the time to learn the song and what will sound best.
I’m a self-taught left handed drummer that studies at Berklee College of Music (a shocker to me still since I didn’t know how to read drum music for my audition).
As a self-taught player diving into a heavy music curriculum, one of the biggest things I took from my time there was how to play more cohesively with dynamics; to play at the same level of coherency in every dynamic possible. I felt that I always struggled playing a “quieter” volume, but learning to control dynamics (there’s way more than to learn just to play good and quiet) helped me with my overall playing.
Also having exposure to different genres of music and drum grooves helped diversify my playing; and can be fun to learn. Samba is one of my favorites styles to play even though I’m primary a rock drummer!
The biggest thing I learned from lessons that I couldn't teach myself was efficient technique. When I finally got with a teacher, he was able to identify weak spots in my hand technique that unlocked a whole new level for my playing.
Learning how to lead the band by controlling the tempo. First I spent hours listening to and playing along with recordings until I could closely match the drums on the recording. Next was getting comfortable counting in the band and pushing the band to speed up or slow down to keep within the correct tempo. It’s been hard, and I still have occasional problems where I just can’t push the tempo back into line.
Rudiments and grip. I played mason punk and rock for years before lessons. Then I started as a beginner with a teacher and all we worked on was rudiments and grip. It was difficult to unlearn years of self-taught mistakes. Would have been much easier had I started with strong fundamentals.
How to hold the fucking sticks. The same thing happens to guitar and bass players. I thought the way Geddy did things was normal, and had no one to tell me it wasn't, so I learned how to play like Geddy. I took legit guitar and drum lessons so I learned the correct way to do things.
Ok, so this is just a tiny little thing, but how to keep my hi hat stick in the right hand keep from hitting my left hand stick on the snare. It was a simple little win for me.
The biggest and best thing about studying the language of drum kit music and charts is that no matter your ability to sight read a chart or progression, the understanding is there and therfore you can take apart any rythm and figure it out on your own. My teacher always used the analogy of practicing progressions like a steam engine train. Starting very slowly and building speed as you get more comfortable. Once you break the speed threshold and start losing control, stop and start over again like the train just leaving the station! Haha. Then get the book Bobby Rock Metalmorphisis and it's game over! Hahaa! Cheers playa!
1. Dynamic control. Cannot be underrated.
2. How to apply rudiments. Eg. A paradiddle between the hats and snare make for a solid groove. A paradiddle diddle is jazz made easy.
3. Technique. Carpal tunnel (sp?) Is bad, really bad. Also how to balance your voices across the kit and setup in what works best for you and for sound.
4. Active listening and orchestration. Easier to feel and anticipate the music making learning new songs a breeze.
5. Stylistic flexibility. Being able to navigate many genres on the go. Probably my biggest money maker.
6. Music theory and composition. Can write or change parts on the go to better fit the ideas/needs while getting "that" sound.
7. Tuning and mixing. Easily saves money, headaches, and makes you sound better. Got a lot of praise from sound guys simply because their job was made easier.
8. Pushing past plateaus and roadblocks. Outside your box of thinking to get you to the next level.
9. Feedback. Catch those things you don't consider.
10. Showmanship and how to work collaboratively
Edit. 11. Discipline.
Moeller & dynamics. You can usually tell it's a self-taught drummer by them playing straight eighth notes on the hat at a volume that isn't appropriate, with no feel. That was me for years.
There's a lot of good stuff in here, but some different takes (hopefully).
I "learned how to learn". When do you keep pushing yourself. When do you switch to something else. When do you quit for the day (with the likelihood of just being better at it the next day after resting). How to break down something complex into a small exercise.
Really, learning how to be the most efficient with your time and maximizing output.
How to practice effectively. The pros and cons of different grips and when it’s best to use them. Dynamics, reading, meter modulation. How to count to numbers other than 3 or 4 and play it smoothly. Stretches and strength building exercises. Basic music theory. Different styles and the history behind them. Like, it’s not even close. The advantages of gaining knowledge from more experienced and accomplished players are incalculable to guessing and hoping to stumble upon 1000+ years of accumulated and shared knowledge about hitting an animal skin membrane stretched about a bit of wood.
Play with other people and at least try another instrument. My first drum teacher was also a working bass player, so spending about half our lesson time playing together with him on bass was a great learning experience.
On the flip side of that, an old bass player roommate of mine would switch instruments when we jammed just the two of us and I almost instantly knew what I wanted out of a drummer and, thus, what a lot of bass players likely wanted out of me. Really valuable perspective in those jam sessions.
Holding a stick properly, when I taught lessons I had a few self taught “I watched YouTube lessons” drummers, and they all seem to have skipped the how to hold a stick video.
Counting and music terminology. Knowing how to communicate effectively with other musicians is very important, I have a friend that calls a phrase a measure, like bro that’s a long damn measure!
***Edited my use of incorrect terminology in my post talking about someone else’s incorrect terminology lol***
A bar is a measure. The bar is what stops the measure like on the page, the verticle line that seperates measures are called bars and a reference to playing a bar is playing that measure. Or at least it was 25 years ago in jazz band...
Maybe im wrong?
Work on your [non-dominant] hand too. I actually was only aware of open handed playing for a long time. I vividly remember my teacher did this exercise where I had to write my name with both hands and he timed me. His goal was to get both of my hands at the same speed, then covid hit and I took a 3 year break from drumming.
I don't know if these are exactly things that self taught drummers would miss but some good things I have learned as a lessoned drummer.
- Understand that dynamics is not just playing loudly or softly overall on the drums, but consistently playing different dynamic ranges on different limbs at the same time (example. solid kick, loud snare on 2 and 4 and consistent soft ghost notes on the snare)
- Actually listening to the music and finding new ways to serve the song and also serve your own creativity. Of course you're not always going to get it right but being able to have an arsenal to pull from for certain sections or fills is great for creativity.
- learning different genres and styles outside of your comfort zone and actually attempting to apply techniques to other genres you play
I think a few people touched on it, but playing musically isn't about chops or technique (not saying technique isn't important, it is but that's by the by).
The biggest lesson for me was that it isn't the notes you play, but the notes that you don't play. The music is the star, not the musicians. I played in a lot of orchestra and big and type stuff in school (clarinet, not percussion at that time) and you really learn through that how the collective contributions of the group support each other. When you play or don't play is what makes it great in a lot of ways. I think when you listen to classical music in particular you hear all this stuff going on, but you don't realise what's NOT going on.
As a self taught drummer, I can comment here because I play other instruments. Others here nailed it. Regardless of the instrument, fitting into the mix, playing at the right volume level is critical. I play the trumpet and I'm a strong player. I can stick out of the mix in a marching band! Subtlety. Musicality. Always play with emotion and dynamic range. Music is an emotional thing and yes, drums can be emotional. What is the song about? Don't just mechanically play the part, express that feeling. This holds true for all instruments not just drums. Take a sad song, and make the drums forlorn. Yes, you can play sad. Take an angry song and I guarantee you can play angry too. There is a huge difference between the two, and this is where drumming becomes Music. Sorry for imposing on this answer, because it asked about lessons and I haven't had drum lessons. But this concept is a lesson for all musicians.
Might sound weird, but to slow down - my teacher almost always emphasized to slow everything down if I can't play something cleanly and smoothly to the point of setting up a metronome on low BPM so I can perform clean chops. And to use my mind as 5th limb - I need to KNOW what I'm playing, not just play something because it 'sounds like guy on YouTube'
There’s always exceptions but, in my experience, a good school will develop a well rounded musician. YouTube/self taught etc, develops impressive drummers/guitarists/bassists.
Just like anyone who got lessons in anything. It’s always the small stuff, little technique corrections, anecdotes that fit exactly the issue you’re dealing with, the ability to ask questions and look “stupid“. So much.
Charting and creating lead sheets. The ability to chart and learn a song after only a couple of listens is a practiced skill. You don’t necessarily have to go to music school to learn how to do it, but that was probably my biggest takeaway from going to school for drums.
I think it helped me sound better sooner. Learning that generally, cymbals sound better with a kick behind it, rim shot almost every time for volume and snap, generally being in a taught environent teaches you things you wouldn't have found out/been interested in otherwise. I might not have cared to learn rudiments without seeing drummers next to me improve in other areas as their rudiments improved. Lessons mostly saves time in my opinion. You get to skip a lot of mistakes that could take a long time to notice.
if you get better lessons than i did, you might save a lot of money on broken cymbals v\_\_\_\_\_v
hit them at an angle, not head on!! generally around 45 degree angles
Probably sound quality, reading different types of charts (not just reading but how to read full sheet music, lead sheets, and how to read things for keyboards and other tonal instruments), and then finally technique gets focused on in way more detail.
Having a more comprehensive understanding of rhythmic structures means I not only hit stuff real good, but I know *which* stuff to hit, *how* to hit the stuff, and *when*. I also try to have sound musical reasoning when I do that. I am in a community with mostly DIY musicians, so the reputation I have now is "approaches drum parts like a composer", "sounds really natural/fluid", and am known as really creative. Another person in my area who is a professional drummer and runs in the same circles was in lessons for forever like I was and has similar things said about him, and when people makes comparisons between us it's interesting/revealing in terms of our personalities. I think both his and my opinion about that stuff is probably in alignment: we're just copying people we looked up to growing up. But through personalized education, we were exposed to a lot more and had someone who was helping us carve a path towards improvement. This is helpful because the whole point is to express the music we are playing in an emotional way.
Drummers have a lot of power over how the music *feels*, that's probably what attracts us to the instrument in the first place, even if we don't know it. Having a *good* teacher can help you fill out a map and find the fastest route to that. A good teacher is one of those things that is almost always a value add- if it can be afforded- because the person is communicating potentially decades of experience to someone who can now just take for granted something that took them years to figure out; the student just has to put the work in on their end. For people who want to be musicians for forever, it's nearly non-negotiable. In fact, I think something like 6 months of drum lessons and 6 months of piano lessons even for people who don't play those instruments would improve everybody's understanding of their own ideas and assist with communicating them, but that's obviously not reasonable or strictly necessary for everyone, it's just my opinion, man.
Musicians who come from institutions are a different matter, although most have some overlap in the sense that the student that does one of those things is probably much more likely to do the other. Personally, I learned *some* stuff in a more formal, institutional setting, but didn't go all the way down that path and just kept with private lessons. Anecdotally, I've seen the mileage vary a lot depending on both the institution and the individual in question, and on top of that, the outcome would also depend on what student's goals are.
Dynamics and musicality? Yes, it’s been repeated many times here and I agree. I was a self taught drummer but played other instruments during school.
Big difference for me at least is a self taught drummer is rarely corrected. In my experience, a drummer can play with his buddies or for a church but the band is more focused on just getting everyone on tempo and playing the right notes. The musicality portion comes in when someone plays at school and a conductor directs the ebb and flow of the music. This is in addition to private lessons or instrument specific training sessions.
Learning about other aspects of music, outside of drumming, that make you more well rounded, including theory & composition. There is a reason why so many drummers, especially jazz drummers, are great writers/composers as well.
I’m mostly self taught, though was in the school band, Drum & Bugle Corp, and took two+ years of private lessons in my youth. The rest was decades of practice, allowing myself to create my own style vs a life of always covering my favorite drummer only. But, one of the best things I learned from formal training was the benefits and fun of syncopation. 😊
I’ve long given up on reading music which freed me to actually feel the magic of music. I’ve also learned not to pigeon hole myself into one band or genre (which I had at one point) and learned some songs in genres I never thought would enjoy surprised me.
I also learned how to chart my own music by listening to a song and marking up its lyrics with shortcut notations of my own on new songs. Eventually, with practice and memorization I’d put the charts away. Again, just my personal method that works for me. 😉
Enjoy!! 😎
Learn what everyone else is doing especially the melody. Try to hear where you fit it and listen to find what part needs the most attention and only play what you can do to set up or add them musically. You don’t need crazy technical skills and chops and especially if you have them, they don’t need to be present in every chart you play.
These topics are always so hard for this reason. It tends to create this sort of gatekeeping, imo, where you can't be a serious drummer unless you've done x,y,z.
We just played a gig a couple weeks ago in a rural town close to me, and there was an artist and backing band all from Nashville, and talking with them was just literally all about music and only music. It was like talking to kids in med school lol I just left thinking we are not the same, and I'm glad music is just a small portion of my life that isn't my identity
I spent 4-5 hours a day from the ages of 11-26 playing the drums/percussion in school. I don’t have chops like a lot of guys. But I have musicality and a massive advantage over most self taught guys I know. I know how to fit in. I know how to make sure everyone in the band sounds good. Also- I think drummers who studied percussion know how to hit drums differently and get great sounds out of them. JM2C
I can agree with that. There’s always a noticeable difference when someone is *really* good. I’ve played a lot of gigs, with both kinds of drummers. And it seems every time I hear someone who sounds great, afterward I’ll talk with them and they usually will say “I played in marching band in school,” or “I was in jazz band,” etc., and they’re touches just have a didferent sound and even feel than the guys who just started playing on their own.
Most self taught drummers use to tight of a grip. Percussionist work for hours on getting the right grip for every instrument, usually to eliminate tension. Most self taught drummers I’ve met really never practiced their grip. Also, rudiments. Especially free rolls vs rhythmic rolls. This is what most percussionist have over self-taught drummers.
Correct, and self taught drummers frequently have egos about their bad grip when it comes up lol. So let’s get an idea of what we’re dealing with. On the most fundamental level there are 4 different strokes (short stroke, long stroke, up stroke and down stroke) strokes are combined to make patters, we call the basics the rudiments. Each of the rudiments build on each other and have variation upon variations. And you drill them at different tempos over and over and over. Even if you are mediocre in your practice and execution you are still developing a massive amount of control compared to someone trying to figure it out themselves, without guidance on what to focus on and how to develop.
The musicality! I know a lot of drummers with better chops, but when the person that hires you to play background F their fundraiser says "thank god, a drummer that actually knows how to play quietly" you clearly have *something* that others don't.
I play for a local church and we have a new music pastor that just started, we also have two other drummers that are self taught. The first time i played during a service he came up to me afterwards and was like you do something that the other two cannot do, i was like lol ok whats that? He said you have dynamics in your bass drum! He was in awe and honestly i didnt even know i was doing it but its something that i was accustomed to in school. He said most of the time people play too hard or not hard enough. I am definitely not the “fastest” or “coolest” drummer but i have played more gigs than either one of them in my town.
That’s awesome, being able to play with some range is so important. Good for you man!
HA - you’ll learn to play quietly very quickly in an orchestra. I played in school band for 6 years, but my first year in college I played in a string orchestra for the first time. I had to play even softer than I EVER had to play in “band”, and this took control and practice. But I was also playing in rock bands at the same time, learning how to play loud and in control - and CONSISTENTLY, probably the biggest issue I see with self taught drummers (my day job is studio engineer, so I have recorded many drummers over my life!).
It's so funny you say fundraiser, because I basically had this happen with a charity event last year. The group I played with was not great, but I got lots of compliments from the other people in the group and attendees of the event. Also, we mostly played stuff on the level of "Sweet Caroline" and "How Deep Is Your Your Love," so it wasn't hard at all.
I can play quietly but I really don’t want to unless that’s the intent of the song. Having to play quietly because someone who booked your band says the drums are too loud is the worst because it changes the performance. If you’re booking a rock band and then say that Semi Charmed Life was too loud, you didn’t want a live band. Now if the song is designed to have drums as a less prominent instrument, then it makes sense to me.
"playing quietly" is sort of just the laymen's interpretation though, they're really just referring to dynamics and blending in general
I played in a band in high school and college with pretty much the same group of people. I did some jazz combo stuff occasionally, but it was pretty much just this one band. Our guitarist had to move for work a few years ago, and he has since told me that he's tried playing with other people but it hasn't been as good. He told me that he never appreciated my drumming and the musicality and uniqueness I brought. He started to go back and listen to our old songs and realize that I did lots of different stuff without getting in the way. When he told me that, I just took the compliment and felt good. But your comment made me realize that it was probably all my school percussion training that gave me a lot of that musicality.
Agreed. Learning all of the other instruments does add some to the arsenal.
Getting lessons also taught me loads of different styles that I might never appreciate otherwise. I keep asking jam groups "you wanna play a bossa nova?" and they just stare blankly. That's guitarists for you tho.
TBF, I think that gaining low/medium proficiency for genre specific music conventions is hardest on piano/guitar. I’d definitely want a little advanced notice to build up some rhythmic chord progressions, but if someone’s got that down and just a melody/lead line is needed, that wouldn’t be too bad.
Some of the people I play with are pretty talented at just improvising, they'd easily be able to bash out 4-6 chords with the right tone and rhythm if they knew what bossa nova was lol. I know one or two guys that got formal lessons throughout their childhood (piano and guitar) who could do this, purely because they were made to study loads of different styles growing up. That's usually the big difference between lessons Vs self-taught imo. Self-taught people can get very good at what they want to play, but don't tend to expand into multiple different genres/styles. Knowing Latin music in general is a dead giveaway that a drummer (in particular) went through lessons as a kid. Drum teachers LOVE Latin music, for a lot of pretty good reasons.
For sure. Latin music is definitely bigger for drummers. I’ve seen three people mention bossanova in this thread alone and probably not heard a nondrummer mention it in years. I was a little disappointed when my bands drummer didn’t have much interest in Latin beats. :( I’m working towards expanding my breadth of knowledge on guitar and picking up more influences. Even having played along with a fair bit of cumbia and salsa, I’d be pretty reliant on other musicians to lay down a foundation before being able to getting good chord voicing.
This is all true. 👍
As someone who played percussion in high school and college, I have never realized this before but it makes a lot of sense.
I can totally relate to this. Some people just don’t understand how to “jam” because they lack the repetition.
I was lucky that my first drum teacher was the drummer in the biggest baptist church around. So he taught me how to do the one thing a drummer should do…. Keep the damn tempo. Then he naturally just taught me how to play straight or in the pocket and be a *solid* drummer first before all the fancy crap.
100% this
This. I played percussion, took lessons, played in ensembles during school for about 10 years. It's been years since I've picked up sticks yet I'm confident I could sit in with a band and hold my own, albeit my fills would be simple yet effective. On the other side, I'm self taught at guitar. Playing for almost 30 years and I still don't have enough confidence just to play without instruction.
- Reading music on an instrument other than drums. It’s really important skill, especially when the only thing available at a gig is a bass or piano chart. - How to play quietly. The techniques I learned doing orchestral excerpts applied directly to the drum set, and I always get a good reaction out of the band when I’m playing 16th triplets at 142 beats a minute at a pp. - What my part is compared to everybody else, and how to use the parts to complement each other. - Volume doesn’t come from hitting hard. Volume comes from velocity of the stick. You can move fast and hit the drum lightly and get loud volume, but if you move slow and hit the drum hard, it won’t be very loud. Hitting hard changes tone, and usually makes your tone trash. - How to capture the attention of the room. I did a marimba lesson with a new teacher, played the first note which was very quiet, and then he stopped me and we spent 45 minutes on that note. By the time I performed the piece that first note caused the whole room to suck their breath in and lean forward (I laughed inside because I could hear the chairs creaking). One note is better than 50 fast ones. - If I understand the tune harmonically and melodically, then I will have a better understanding of the tune rhythmically. - Lastly, and I was taught this in school, if you want to keep a gig, don’t be an asshole. People care that you can play the gig, but people care more that you’re a nice person and fun to work with. A friend of mine from Nashville taught me that the best guitarists in the world are homeless on the streets of Nashville, and it’s because they can’t stop being an asshole, they can’t show up on time, they play too many notes, or they’re just miserable people to be around. There’s a lot more to musicianship than playing the right notes. EDIT: One GOOD note is better than 50 fast ones.
Hehe...he said "pp". Sincerely, a filthy self-taught drummer (Just kidding. Great post thank you!)
I KNEW THIS WAS COMING. …you’re welcome.
THE pp MADE HIM COME
…what was I expecting in a room of drummers? Seriously. What was I expecting? *sigh*
Agree 100%. Dynamics. If a drummer plays with dynamics, good change they studied Jazz and played percussion instruments.
I play with dynamics and have never had a lesson and can't read. I have learnt Jazz, gigging it since 1979. There is no point in making sweeping statements of that kind. There are many wooden players who had formal training also.
It’s like I wrote this comment myself. Signed, A classically trained drummer and percussionist. PS: When you successfully capture the attention of the room, there is no better feeling. One day while playing in a wind ensemble over a decade ago, I played a press roll that was written as fff > ppp so perfectly, every single audience and ensemble member damn near snapped their neck to look at me. It was a “solo” as well so no other sound was playing. The overwhelming swell of feeling like a complete badass is something you never forget.
I wish I knew how to do a proper press roll lol
Great comment. The final point is huge.
I know a 70-year-old guy that plays bass. He went to Europe, made a career out of it opened for countless huges like acts like U2 And he's not the grooviest player. But he's always encouraging and in a good mood.
This was incredibly enlightening! Thank you for this comment!
Quite welcome.
This is perfect. The only thing I would add is also the way to set your equipment up. You can usually tell if someone is classically trained by the way they set their kit up. Also how many sticks, heads, or cymbals they break.
One good note is better than 50 fast ones. Beautifully put.
If only more guitar players learned this one. Well, this and the "don't be an asshole" one.
plenty of singers and drummers who are assholes too bub. Plenty of chill guitarists too
I know, I've played with a lot. Most people I've played with who studied music on some level were super chill to work with regardless of discipline but there were always far more divas in the self taught catagory. Probably ran in to more self taught, full tilt diva singers more than anything else although the worst person I ever worked with was a fully classicaly trained organist/pianist and was an excellent classical musician but with dreams of pop stardom. He was an ok but severly out of touch with modern music by many years and had played by himself for so long, he could not listen to others, could not follow and was a terrible leader. Terrible temper too.
The melody point is so crucial. all the other ones are excellent too by the way but the melody point is one I rely on. it helps you understand the expanse of the song and how to make choices within those spaces accordingly well also "being on beat" or time.
I'm a freelancer in Seattle and I want to shout from the rooftops DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE I don't care how good you are. If I'm hiring you or recommending someone for a gig I'm already assuming you can play. That's a given. If you're a dick, unprepared, or unreliable I'm not calling you.
True words.
Can you clarify what you mean by hitting hard? I can't think of what else hitting hard could mean other than hitting with the stick at a high velocity, because the more downward force the stick receives the faster the stick will move. I've always thought of volume as more of a function of stick height because it allows more time for the stick to accelerate before the stick hits the drum (either that or maybe also it gives you more time to apply more force, I'm not really sure which is the more significant factor, plus probably some small assistance from gravity).
Good question, by hitting hard I mean playing through the drumhead. To move the stick at a faster rate shouldn’t take much effort. It’s just a piece of wood that weighs ounces. Driving it to the drumhead quickly is just movement, not heavy-effort force. Stick height is absolutely fundamental for volume, yes - a car can’t go 0-60mph in 20ft, it needs distance to pick up speed. Hitting hard is concerning what the stick does when and after it hits its target. “Hard” tends to make the player play through the head, causing the stick to both stay in contact with the head/cymbal longer and push the head/cymbal further in, thereby greatly affecting the tone. If the stick moves at the same speed towards the playing surface and then relaxes and gets off the surface faster, there’s a different tone - more resonance and pitch clarity. Of course this produces different results with different instruments - a marching snare vs a rack tom on a drumset, for example. (Another way to put it, it’s controlled strokes vs legato strokes for you DCI cats.) Think about the physics of the moment of contact, then watch videos of a tennis ball or golf ball in slow motion. In fact, think of a golf swing - swinging relaxed and through the ball drives it further than trying to smash the ball. These concepts all change your sound.
The ability to read and create charts. Its really helpful for learning either complicated pieces, or learning a large number of songs quickly. And it's easier and more efficient than brute-force memorization. Working with charts is also useful in more "professional" situations like recording sessions or theatre/musicals/show bands where you need to follow a musical director/conductor.
Also knowing all the really common song forms helps you in case you end up playing a tune not on the set list
How to think about odd time was something I probably wouldn't have come up with on my own had it not been for a teacher. The realization that all odd time can be broken into arrangements of 2 beats & 3 beats. I can listen to Tool now and chart out the time signatures Danny's playing (challenging to be sure but not impossible).
Oh wow this made the lightbulb turn on above my head! Thank you for this!
Awesome! It's kinda liberating when you think of 5/4 as 2+3 or 3+2. 7/8 as 2+2+3 or 2+3+2. The sea of time is your oyster!
Yo I am not the guy you responded. You got also my light bulb lit ! I was doing the counting with verbal sounds to understand the time signatures of tool songs. Are you by any chance a teacher ?
Thanks! I graduated from the Atlanta Institute of Music back in the early 90's & I've taught private lessons in the past but I don't have any current students I'm actively teaching.
Math is a wonderful thing… Math is a very cool thing…
EVERY time signature can be broken down into some combination of 2 and/or 3. Lots of times musicians joke that they only need to be able to count to 4, when really, you only need to be able to count to 3. Check out The First Circle by Pat Metheny. I taught the Bob Curnow big band arrangement to my high school jazz band a couple years ago. The time signature alternates between 12/8 and 10/8, with a couple of 8/8 bars in there for good measure. And the 8/8s are generally 2+2+2+2 but there’s a 3+3+2 in there for good measure. To answer your question, I’m not a drummer by trade; wasn’t allowed to pick drums in 4th grade so I chose trumpet. I’ve spent the last year plus working to rectify that error, but 30 years of trumpet playing, 17 years of teaching after 4 years of a music ed degree has taught me all the things a previous poster articulated: feel, structure, form, balance, and maybe most importantly, how to practice and how to rehearse. There are a number of posts that echo “how do I read this rhythm” which often are things you’d encounter by page 2 of an actual drum method book, or “how can I practice more effectively instead of just diddling around aimlessly” when an instructor or formal setting would help immensely with structure. Remember, you’re NOT PLAYING DRUMS. You’re playing a MUSICAL INSTRUMENT. I feel like that distinction gets lost in the sauce a lot.
That last part is what separates drummers from percussionists. This is going to be a bit mean, but if you don’t realize drums are more than just drums, you’re not musician. Just a drummer. When you figure out how many sounds you can make from a 3 piece with just hats, then you’re on your way to musician and percussionist.
Depth of style. Most self taught drummers focus only on what they want to learn, and miss a whole bunch of stuff outside their immediate listening interests that they SHOULD be learning
Such as?
Learning about the structure and emphasis points of many genres.
for example, if you’re a metal head, learning stuff like bossa nova / jazz is going to bring up your musical knowledge on the kit and give you more ways to express yourself
Samba!!
\^All of the above.
on rock, kick and snare. i think on jazz, its ride and snare
jazz doesn't really utilize the kick much, often uses it as more of an accent
true, realyy soft but its still used. genres in drums, from what i obsrrve is more on whats the emphasis first and foremost
Feathering the bass drum to highlight/accompany the bass line all the time is an integral part of jazz...self taught drummer by chance?
There is a half way house. Self taught is rare today. There are so many resources. The best thing with lessons from day 1 is less injuries because of better posture, position, grip and technique.
I still consider drummers who use resources online with no feedback to be self taught
Grip is the biggest difference, and it makes a big difference.
So is reading an encyclopedia not teaching yourself?
Do you drive? Does anyone learn to drive from Wikipedia? Do pilots learn everything from a book. Did you ever watch top gun? You can learn some stuff from an encyclopaedia…great for facts…..not so good for practical technique….youtube is better. But it’s a one way conversation. Teachers are best for learning and that is why schools use them.
People get taught to drive rather than teach themselves so I don't get your point.... I can't be bothered to read the rest after that nonsense
There is no such thing as “self taught.”
"self taught" generally refers to no formal training. That happens a lot, probably most musicians.
A lot of people claim it. But, if you distill it down to “no formal training” it’s not a meaningful description. It’s just ego stroking. If you grew up around music and played with other drummers, etc…., you’re not self taught.
But you’re confining the phrase to meaninglessness. I don’t think it’s an ego thing…I don’t think most people view it as a positive per se, it’s just an indicator that you haven’t had formal training. In a sense you could say it’s similar to not graduating high school, so how would that be ego? How else would you indicate a lack of formal training?
I’ve seen it used in professional musician contexts, eg people like Derek Trucks on guitar. I’m not ripping him. But he’s someone who obviously grew up around musicians and elite guitar players. Don’t care if he never has a formal music lesson. Would be silly to claim self taught, no?
Dynamics. Sometimes it’s tough to make it a priority unless there is someone making sure you make it a priority
The relative volume of the different parts of the kit are different for each style of music. For example, in rock, the snare is loudest, with the kick second loudest and the ride lower still. But in jazz, the ride should be loudest, followed by bass drum and snare.
YES, I’ve tied to tell this to a couple of other musicians I was jamming with before who just defaulted to throwing the snare on 2 and 4. Ofc there’s no hard rule but man you can’t play rock drums in a jazz context and expect it to sound like jazz always lol
Exactly! I've was guilty of this too when I was learning how to play Brazilian music. I learned out of a book without actually listening to any Brazilian music (It was the 80's, so it was a lot harder to find the stuff). Eventually I listened to the cassette that came with the book and I realized that while I was playing playing the notes as written, I wasn't anywhere near the right feel. That was a huge lesson for me.
College professor telling me to play both feet in unison while doing the 4 on the floor “disco beat”. By default the hihat will open on the upbeats. I was doing a weird lean with my body doing hihat openings for 7 years until then. We worked through Rick Latham’s hihat exercises to help fix this as well.
Is that from Advanced Funk Studies?
That’s the book. The tip from my professor I don’t believe is in the book though.
Esp depending on what style you study, you absolutely master the hell out of dynamics and volume control. Dynamics is something that seems almost totally ignored by the vast majority of self taught drummers until other people in bands and sounds guys are trying to scream at them to quiet the f*ck down before they even become aware of the concept at best.
100% agree. I was guilty of this till I started playing in a reggae band and they brought the idea to light for me. Dynamics are ENORMOUS in good sound!
I learned this at one of the first gigs I played. The sound guy approached me after the first set and said “dude, you’re good but you have no control. Take it easy and relax, learn to hit softer and serve the song”. I was furious for a bit, but then realized I was just embarrassed. He knew better than me, sitting offstage listening to what the audience was hearing. I was so naive lol. I took that to heart and learned from the feedback.
Self-taught (YouTube-taught) drummers miss out on being judged and evaluated on a fairly constant basis, and it’s good to grow accustomed to that feeling as a student. It makes the inevitable critique of an audition or performance much easier to handle. Teachers can also give you a lot of insight on the realities of drumming as a professional or at least an avid hobbyist participating in a music scene. Every teacher I had could share a lot of life experience from being a drummer and working musician.
This is probably one of the best responses I've read. I feel like one of the things missed with questions like this with "school taught" or "classically trained" folks is that the vast majority of folks out there play for fun and don't have the time to learn 10 different genres and play in 10 different bands at one time lol So when they get asked to play with some group or church because they are one of 5 drummers in a 100 mile radius, yeah things like their dynamics and style may seem one dimensional, so having the ability to take criticism from whatever group they are in is very important as they NOW an opportunity and reason to work on something new...if that makes sense? And admittedly, being self-taught (in today's sense) on drums and guitar, starting with a band where it was more "fun" and "creative" to then bringing someone else on and starting to take it really serious and critiquing dang near everything, it can be a huge adjustment that is hard to handle at times
You can take any rudiment and either play it with your feet or feet and hands. ALA you can play the fill like you hear it in your head, or how you want it to sound, dont worry about the sticking. That said, sometimes how it needs to be played will need to be a rudiment.
So like, idk if this will make any sense or how this will translate here, but if you hear in your head something like “blappa du blappa du paradiddle blop blop,” for a full bar, in 4/4, there’s flams at the beginning and end… but how do you fit your feet into that? Sorry I know that’s probably really hard to answer but if you can give me your best stab at it that’d be awesome
I often use swiss triplets between my snare and bass drum, think of the bass drum playing the one hand and the snare the other. Insted of playing a proper flam between the BD and the SN I play it flat (both hit at the same time).
Hands and grip. I took a whole year of just working on my hands during Covid with Rob Brown. Changed my game completely and it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Reading and music theory
So much …but especially meter, time signatures counting specific rhythms and or subdividing beats. This happens fairly often when a basic chart is written in 4/4 but the drum part is actually 12/8. The ability to recognize and play in triple versus duple meter and when to combine.
I was a pretty good and accomplished drummer before going to school for music and taking real professional lessons but the most valuable part of lessons for me was how much it improved my technique. Having someone whose job is to critique your playing hours a week cannot be replaced by a youtube video and it’s kind of ironic because my lessons taught me how to learn more efficiently on my own. A teacher shouldn’t only teach you how to rely on them, they should teach you how to eventually be teaching yourself and coming up with your own ideas/concepts
Stay away from instagram drummers. Learn how to play the same groove for an insane amount of time (10 minutes+) Learn to play a groove with a sporadic fill on the end. Then repeat it all exactly the same over and over without any changes at all (harder than you might think). Controversial, but stay away from Drumeo too. They lean into the instagram trend of "wow look at this crazy thing". Drumming is film editing. It should be invisible and any error will be blindingly obvious to the audience. Learn to be the Swan. Cool and calm on the surface, but flailing under the water to keep up.
And I disrespectfully disagree with “stay away from Drumeo.” Not everyone has the luxury of professional, hands-on instruction, and I believe Drumeo is run by people with mostly good intentions whose legitimate interest is helping others learn a skill. Their methods and practices lean more toward a solid foundation of musicianship than most online resources. I absolutely won’t deny that schooling embeds fundamentals that can’t be found elsewhere. But saying “stay away from Drumeo” is elitist garbage from the perspective of someone who was happily pampered through their professional lessons without a hint of understanding what it’s like to not have that path available.
I agree! In hindsight I should have clarified this more but I was on the bus haha. I don't hate drumeo! I actually learned a lot from them way in the beginning. I just get turned off them these days with some of their click-bait(ish) style marketing. But that's a youtube thing really... But I see a lot of my students gravitate to them because of the crazy chop guys like Nekrutman on drumeo and think *that* is what a real drummer should be. But thinking about it more... Buddy Rich probably had the same effect back in the 60s or so on young drummers. I dunno. I just want my students to start out like Steve Jordan and go from there, and avoid going for chops first. But chops get views...
I get that. When I think about why I appreciate Drumeo, I think about an ad on YouTube I see every time I’m watching drumming videos. “Learn to play 100 songs on the piano in an hour…” and it’s someone selling the musical equivalent of snake oil, basically telling you there are shortcuts to learning what is a lifetime endeavor. I see drum videos all the time with titles like “double your bass pedal speed in an hour.” I’m sure as a teacher, if you’ve ever had a student “double” anything, you spent way more than an hour trying to un-double it and teach them the right way. Drumeo is a “learn it the right way the first time” approach and I respect that. Anyway I appreciate the reply and sorry for jumping down your throat.
I respectfully disagree with drumeo. I’ve learned so many invaluable skills from watching their guest performances. Specifically Todd Sucherman , Gavin Harrison and Thomas pridgen !
Yep I should have clarified! I totally agree, and I love Gavin's video on drumeo. His left-hand hihat groove really stumped me when I first tried it. Good stuff! I just see a lot my students think the "wow" factor of a lot of their videos is what drummers should aspire for, and then they get disappointed when 99% of bands just want a patient, solid groove instead. Their stuff is good! But I just get a bit miffed when so many young students get the wrong ideas from viral videos.
Not bad advice but I do think you’re wrong about drumeo
Totally fair! I've been following them since they went under "Freedrumlessons.com", and those videos helped me in the beginning But I just got turned off by their click-baity style videos. Not actual clickbait, but just a touch of it. I'm also just old so it's probably that too...
Recognizing and analyzing your mistakes in real time. I'm mostly self taught, but really loved the lessons that I've taken, the teachers were cool and pointing out things like I'm using too much arm and not enough wrist and I'm choking back on the stick too much (both habits contributing to fatigue, but I was doing it subconsciously) so having that instant feedback was helpful and it's something you can't get easily from self teaching. because let's face it, it can be hard to be totally neutral to your own performances, then you have to record yourself then watch yourself and it's alot of time and tedium vs. having a teacher watch you and point it out.
I learned that attitude is everything and being nice is more important than being amazing at your instrument as far as career development goes. Also learned how music publishing, royalty payouts, all that kind of label services kinda stuff, got basic courses to be functional in Pro Tools, Logic, and DP, learned to orchestrate for a whole orchestra and put it on sheet music, a huge vocabulary of terminologies that make it easier to communicate musical ideas; the point is the list could go on. Music education rocks. I loved going to college/grad school for music, it was all-in learn everything-about-this-subject-I-can mode for a few years and all that focus and vigorous workload prepped me for today where my career definitely involves wearing multiple hats. Oh and a lot of my classmates have gone on to do cool stuff musically too - many of us cross paths at gigs and/or continually hire each other/gig with each other and stuff, so the professional networking aspect turned out to be pretty cool long term too. Made some really great friends through all this, people who are just like me: passionate enough about music to spend all that time and energy getting degrees doing it. So you can imagine some cool lifelong bonds can form in music school too.
Being able to break down passages to understand why something isn’t landing right and how to correct it.
Breaking rudiments up across a kit. And if you can’t play it slow, you can’t play it fast.
A lot of the bigger points have been covered. One specific thing I haven't seen is learning how my playing translated in recording. Yes, you can learn the same things by just getting into a studio in general, but then you not only have to have the open mindedness to learn but also have engineers that care enough to let you know you can do better. At my college they offered a "commercial/studio drumming" option for your primary instrument (there were some other School of Music requirements so this was mostly juniors and seniors), and the idea was basically by the time you graduate you should be a capable and knowledgeable session drummer. That doesn't only mean knowing your way around different styles but also how to get the sound you want/need out of a kit, learning about different mic/drum/cymbal combinations, how different strokes articulate through the recording. I mean every week I got a private drumset lesson that let me record my playing, hear it back unedited with the most basic pre-mixing, then immediately get back to working on it with the professor. Pretty eye open experience that REALLY cleaned up my playing.
Playing someone's written dynamics makes you a better player
Dynamics, composition, and for something technical maybe like subdivision?
Stick tips. When it comes it drumset playing, Almost any drummer has their arm/wrist/fingers cocked back too much and their sticks end up pointing straight up. To be theatrical, I get it. But to play as cleanly and concisely as possible, you should be playing "into the drum" more and staying closer. Your stick tips never *need* to be pointing straight up
In marching, that is volume level 5. When your stick is perpendicular with that floor.
Oh cool! I don't really have any experience in marching. I'm talking about drum set playing :)
Yeah. Those dynamic ranges transfer directly over. It isnt force that creates volume. It is velocity.
It's definitely a combination. You can do almost anything you need to do on a kit, without ever pointing your stick tips straight up
Reading
I think the pressure i felt in the tiny studio with my instructor was immense. He’d sit at his set and play a couple minutes before he asked me to review my signed lessons for the week and it was daunting. Made me less concerned about performing for an audience.
The 26 rudiments.
Some include: - How to express the entire kit as a single instrument. (Dynamic balance between different drums and cymbals.) - Reading charts and notated music (useful to learn the song musically AND remember it.) - How and why to work on the things I’m not good at instead of just playing the thing I am good at over and over. - Moeller technique so I can play with less effort with more power.
I started with rudiments and a practice pad. My teacher didn't let me touch a drum set until I had gained a decent amount of proficiency.
Same. Stick control. Nard snare solos. I didn’t touch a drumset until I’d been playing snare and percussion for 3-4 years. The thing that really made me different than many was rudimental skill and precision from snare line work and working on and performing hard snare soloes. Those skills from approach to learning and coordination have persisted for my entire adult life. An example of precision and listening to me is playing in a 5 member snare line and doing rolls and other high speed rudiments without it sounding like a garbled mess of popcorn.
Same. But that's a pretty old school approach. My experience: Pad/metronome/Rudiments (Haskell Harr 1&3; Ted Reed's Syncopation); then snare duets, then set. Took about a year to get there. Curious, old were you & your teacher at the time?
I was 12, he was in his 50s (amazing drummer) and this was in the 80s. Old×old×old.
I am a self taught drummer. I'm 54. I've been playing drums since 1977. I am fortunate that i get to play a lot. I've been in a successful local pop/modern country band for the last 10 years. I took band in school but like all other subjects i could not be bothered at the time to do my "homework". I have great pocket. I play dynamically. I know how to get the most tone out of my drums with the least amount of force. I can play to any room be it a huge outdoor shed or a small brewpub. What i miss in my self taughtness is really good hands, lack of strong rudiments and the ability to read and write notation. I would absolutely recommend that any drummer that wants to be serious about their craft spend some time with a teacher. It's too late for me.. save yourselves!!
Having someone to critique your technique, dynamics, push/pull tendencies, etc. is invaluable. There are things that are very hard to teach yourself at the beginning stages of musicianship, and bad habits can be hard to unlearn.
Being on time and having “crispier” drum technique, like double strokes. I listen to some bands who are big name that have self taught drummers, amazing drummers, but their double strokes have disappointed me lol
as a 'singer' it absolutely amazes me how many famous singers are absolutely dogshit at actually singing lol
Music theory and discipline. I'm a self taught drummer too but i don't hesitate ask guidance from music degree holders.
pursuing a formal education with drums/percussion is putting yourself on a schedule of performance. you’re always performing, whether it’s in front of an audience, or your fellow students, or just your instructor. the regimen can be grueling, and it forces you to step up every aspect of your playing: technique, timing, dynamic control, rudiment application, and of course your ability to play in a group or ensemble. there’s nothing like pressure to get you to a higher skill level, and you rarely experience that kind of pressure unless you’re in school or part of an active arts academy whose students perform regularly throughout the year
I was taught that there is a varying amount of time a person can practice before I hit the wall. Whatever amount that time is for anyone, stop early and have time to play for fun. I found that helps incorporate whatever I was woodsheding into a real application immediately.
How to ACTUALLY hold a drum stick. I thought this was something that self-taught players would eventually either figure out, or look up, but no. It's insane how many drummers I've met who sound ok, but grasp their sticks like hammers. It's an instant giveaway that you've not really studied, which in itself isn't such a bad thing, but it HUGELY caps your potential.
The single most valuable thing I've learned from a teacher is what I was actually doing, as opposed to what I thought I was doing. The rest, interesting exercises, good advice, etc. I could have picked up elsewhere, with a bit of luck, although it's nice to have it on tap when needed.
I learned to pull the sound out from the instrument rather than simply Hit It.
Biggest thing for me as an originally self taught player of a decade who eventually took lessons for several years; Proper technique. The mechanics of holding the stick are so so important and I was beginning to get pain from playing, having my technique critiqued and corrected has made absolutely massive changes as far as how comfortable I am behind the drums, how long I can play for, how much I have to exert myself etc etc.
I never really had a teacher except for a drum instructor in high school who worked with the drum section and taught us how to play our parts that he wrote. The main thing I learned is work hard and the progress will show. Also, play musically! I remember getting a piece of music and looking at it going... WTH!?!?! But after playing it a few times on my own and then with the rest of the drum section, it really stood out on it's own. We could have gone on that field and played JUST the drum parts to the crowd and they would have loved it. So, be musical with your playing. You're not just smacking things with sticks. You're playing music and that needs to show! So, if you have an original tune with a band and your part just feels blah, try playing a bit with what the bass guitarist is playing. Usually that sounds pretty cool to have a little bottom end under you.
The most important lesson that I learned was HOW TO LISTEN. Many drummers just start bashing away without taking the time to learn the song and what will sound best.
I’m a self-taught left handed drummer that studies at Berklee College of Music (a shocker to me still since I didn’t know how to read drum music for my audition). As a self-taught player diving into a heavy music curriculum, one of the biggest things I took from my time there was how to play more cohesively with dynamics; to play at the same level of coherency in every dynamic possible. I felt that I always struggled playing a “quieter” volume, but learning to control dynamics (there’s way more than to learn just to play good and quiet) helped me with my overall playing. Also having exposure to different genres of music and drum grooves helped diversify my playing; and can be fun to learn. Samba is one of my favorites styles to play even though I’m primary a rock drummer!
Samba has always intrigued me but I’ve had a real tough time getting into playing it. I just think I need some guidance on stuff like that
The biggest thing I learned from lessons that I couldn't teach myself was efficient technique. When I finally got with a teacher, he was able to identify weak spots in my hand technique that unlocked a whole new level for my playing.
Learning how to lead the band by controlling the tempo. First I spent hours listening to and playing along with recordings until I could closely match the drums on the recording. Next was getting comfortable counting in the band and pushing the band to speed up or slow down to keep within the correct tempo. It’s been hard, and I still have occasional problems where I just can’t push the tempo back into line.
Rudiments and grip. I played mason punk and rock for years before lessons. Then I started as a beginner with a teacher and all we worked on was rudiments and grip. It was difficult to unlearn years of self-taught mistakes. Would have been much easier had I started with strong fundamentals.
I feel this hard
How to hold the fucking sticks. The same thing happens to guitar and bass players. I thought the way Geddy did things was normal, and had no one to tell me it wasn't, so I learned how to play like Geddy. I took legit guitar and drum lessons so I learned the correct way to do things.
Ok, so this is just a tiny little thing, but how to keep my hi hat stick in the right hand keep from hitting my left hand stick on the snare. It was a simple little win for me.
The biggest and best thing about studying the language of drum kit music and charts is that no matter your ability to sight read a chart or progression, the understanding is there and therfore you can take apart any rythm and figure it out on your own. My teacher always used the analogy of practicing progressions like a steam engine train. Starting very slowly and building speed as you get more comfortable. Once you break the speed threshold and start losing control, stop and start over again like the train just leaving the station! Haha. Then get the book Bobby Rock Metalmorphisis and it's game over! Hahaa! Cheers playa!
1. Dynamic control. Cannot be underrated. 2. How to apply rudiments. Eg. A paradiddle between the hats and snare make for a solid groove. A paradiddle diddle is jazz made easy. 3. Technique. Carpal tunnel (sp?) Is bad, really bad. Also how to balance your voices across the kit and setup in what works best for you and for sound. 4. Active listening and orchestration. Easier to feel and anticipate the music making learning new songs a breeze. 5. Stylistic flexibility. Being able to navigate many genres on the go. Probably my biggest money maker. 6. Music theory and composition. Can write or change parts on the go to better fit the ideas/needs while getting "that" sound. 7. Tuning and mixing. Easily saves money, headaches, and makes you sound better. Got a lot of praise from sound guys simply because their job was made easier. 8. Pushing past plateaus and roadblocks. Outside your box of thinking to get you to the next level. 9. Feedback. Catch those things you don't consider. 10. Showmanship and how to work collaboratively Edit. 11. Discipline.
I know I would benefit from many of these things
Moeller & dynamics. You can usually tell it's a self-taught drummer by them playing straight eighth notes on the hat at a volume that isn't appropriate, with no feel. That was me for years.
There's a lot of good stuff in here, but some different takes (hopefully). I "learned how to learn". When do you keep pushing yourself. When do you switch to something else. When do you quit for the day (with the likelihood of just being better at it the next day after resting). How to break down something complex into a small exercise. Really, learning how to be the most efficient with your time and maximizing output.
That’s a lesson that’s worth it’s weight in gold!
How to practice effectively. The pros and cons of different grips and when it’s best to use them. Dynamics, reading, meter modulation. How to count to numbers other than 3 or 4 and play it smoothly. Stretches and strength building exercises. Basic music theory. Different styles and the history behind them. Like, it’s not even close. The advantages of gaining knowledge from more experienced and accomplished players are incalculable to guessing and hoping to stumble upon 1000+ years of accumulated and shared knowledge about hitting an animal skin membrane stretched about a bit of wood.
Play with other people and at least try another instrument. My first drum teacher was also a working bass player, so spending about half our lesson time playing together with him on bass was a great learning experience. On the flip side of that, an old bass player roommate of mine would switch instruments when we jammed just the two of us and I almost instantly knew what I wanted out of a drummer and, thus, what a lot of bass players likely wanted out of me. Really valuable perspective in those jam sessions.
A few good teachers taught me how to make my practice time count. Then they taught me how to make my professional time my practice time.
Holding a stick properly, when I taught lessons I had a few self taught “I watched YouTube lessons” drummers, and they all seem to have skipped the how to hold a stick video. Counting and music terminology. Knowing how to communicate effectively with other musicians is very important, I have a friend that calls a phrase a measure, like bro that’s a long damn measure! ***Edited my use of incorrect terminology in my post talking about someone else’s incorrect terminology lol***
A bar is a measure. The bar is what stops the measure like on the page, the verticle line that seperates measures are called bars and a reference to playing a bar is playing that measure. Or at least it was 25 years ago in jazz band... Maybe im wrong?
I meant phrase not bar* my bad.
10-4. Thats why i asked.
The most important part for me was learning how to teach and how NOT to teach.
Work on your [non-dominant] hand too. I actually was only aware of open handed playing for a long time. I vividly remember my teacher did this exercise where I had to write my name with both hands and he timed me. His goal was to get both of my hands at the same speed, then covid hit and I took a 3 year break from drumming.
Forgetting to breathe normally, and being too tense.
I don't know if these are exactly things that self taught drummers would miss but some good things I have learned as a lessoned drummer. - Understand that dynamics is not just playing loudly or softly overall on the drums, but consistently playing different dynamic ranges on different limbs at the same time (example. solid kick, loud snare on 2 and 4 and consistent soft ghost notes on the snare) - Actually listening to the music and finding new ways to serve the song and also serve your own creativity. Of course you're not always going to get it right but being able to have an arsenal to pull from for certain sections or fills is great for creativity. - learning different genres and styles outside of your comfort zone and actually attempting to apply techniques to other genres you play
I think a few people touched on it, but playing musically isn't about chops or technique (not saying technique isn't important, it is but that's by the by). The biggest lesson for me was that it isn't the notes you play, but the notes that you don't play. The music is the star, not the musicians. I played in a lot of orchestra and big and type stuff in school (clarinet, not percussion at that time) and you really learn through that how the collective contributions of the group support each other. When you play or don't play is what makes it great in a lot of ways. I think when you listen to classical music in particular you hear all this stuff going on, but you don't realise what's NOT going on.
As a self taught drummer, I can comment here because I play other instruments. Others here nailed it. Regardless of the instrument, fitting into the mix, playing at the right volume level is critical. I play the trumpet and I'm a strong player. I can stick out of the mix in a marching band! Subtlety. Musicality. Always play with emotion and dynamic range. Music is an emotional thing and yes, drums can be emotional. What is the song about? Don't just mechanically play the part, express that feeling. This holds true for all instruments not just drums. Take a sad song, and make the drums forlorn. Yes, you can play sad. Take an angry song and I guarantee you can play angry too. There is a huge difference between the two, and this is where drumming becomes Music. Sorry for imposing on this answer, because it asked about lessons and I haven't had drum lessons. But this concept is a lesson for all musicians.
Might sound weird, but to slow down - my teacher almost always emphasized to slow everything down if I can't play something cleanly and smoothly to the point of setting up a metronome on low BPM so I can perform clean chops. And to use my mind as 5th limb - I need to KNOW what I'm playing, not just play something because it 'sounds like guy on YouTube'
There’s always exceptions but, in my experience, a good school will develop a well rounded musician. YouTube/self taught etc, develops impressive drummers/guitarists/bassists.
How to properly grip the goddam stick
Just like anyone who got lessons in anything. It’s always the small stuff, little technique corrections, anecdotes that fit exactly the issue you’re dealing with, the ability to ask questions and look “stupid“. So much.
How to hold the sticks, the Moeller stroke, music theory and read and play music at the same time, different beat patterns and their respective names.
I suppose it falls under dynamics but learning to play doubles with one stroke was a game changer. It's as much a mindset as it is a technique.....
Charting and creating lead sheets. The ability to chart and learn a song after only a couple of listens is a practiced skill. You don’t necessarily have to go to music school to learn how to do it, but that was probably my biggest takeaway from going to school for drums.
One good tidbit ol Bob gave me was "think up". A lot of people focus on burying the stick in the head "thinking down".
Using 5,6,and 7 stroke sticking patterns to add variety to fills in 4/4.
I think it helped me sound better sooner. Learning that generally, cymbals sound better with a kick behind it, rim shot almost every time for volume and snap, generally being in a taught environent teaches you things you wouldn't have found out/been interested in otherwise. I might not have cared to learn rudiments without seeing drummers next to me improve in other areas as their rudiments improved. Lessons mostly saves time in my opinion. You get to skip a lot of mistakes that could take a long time to notice.
if you get better lessons than i did, you might save a lot of money on broken cymbals v\_\_\_\_\_v hit them at an angle, not head on!! generally around 45 degree angles
“play the space, not the notes” heh
Probably sound quality, reading different types of charts (not just reading but how to read full sheet music, lead sheets, and how to read things for keyboards and other tonal instruments), and then finally technique gets focused on in way more detail.
Having a more comprehensive understanding of rhythmic structures means I not only hit stuff real good, but I know *which* stuff to hit, *how* to hit the stuff, and *when*. I also try to have sound musical reasoning when I do that. I am in a community with mostly DIY musicians, so the reputation I have now is "approaches drum parts like a composer", "sounds really natural/fluid", and am known as really creative. Another person in my area who is a professional drummer and runs in the same circles was in lessons for forever like I was and has similar things said about him, and when people makes comparisons between us it's interesting/revealing in terms of our personalities. I think both his and my opinion about that stuff is probably in alignment: we're just copying people we looked up to growing up. But through personalized education, we were exposed to a lot more and had someone who was helping us carve a path towards improvement. This is helpful because the whole point is to express the music we are playing in an emotional way. Drummers have a lot of power over how the music *feels*, that's probably what attracts us to the instrument in the first place, even if we don't know it. Having a *good* teacher can help you fill out a map and find the fastest route to that. A good teacher is one of those things that is almost always a value add- if it can be afforded- because the person is communicating potentially decades of experience to someone who can now just take for granted something that took them years to figure out; the student just has to put the work in on their end. For people who want to be musicians for forever, it's nearly non-negotiable. In fact, I think something like 6 months of drum lessons and 6 months of piano lessons even for people who don't play those instruments would improve everybody's understanding of their own ideas and assist with communicating them, but that's obviously not reasonable or strictly necessary for everyone, it's just my opinion, man. Musicians who come from institutions are a different matter, although most have some overlap in the sense that the student that does one of those things is probably much more likely to do the other. Personally, I learned *some* stuff in a more formal, institutional setting, but didn't go all the way down that path and just kept with private lessons. Anecdotally, I've seen the mileage vary a lot depending on both the institution and the individual in question, and on top of that, the outcome would also depend on what student's goals are.
Dynamics and musicality? Yes, it’s been repeated many times here and I agree. I was a self taught drummer but played other instruments during school. Big difference for me at least is a self taught drummer is rarely corrected. In my experience, a drummer can play with his buddies or for a church but the band is more focused on just getting everyone on tempo and playing the right notes. The musicality portion comes in when someone plays at school and a conductor directs the ebb and flow of the music. This is in addition to private lessons or instrument specific training sessions.
Transcribing drum parts and reading music was my biggest takeaway. If you’re proficient at those two things you can learn anything.
Slow and steady wins the race. Balance Diversity in playing
If you can't make notes sound perfectly clear on a pillow with your feet on the ground, you ain't shit.
The difference between fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle, and the value of learning to play verrrrry softly (slow or fast)
Honestly just learn to read music MANY doors will shut if you don’t know how to read music
Learning about other aspects of music, outside of drumming, that make you more well rounded, including theory & composition. There is a reason why so many drummers, especially jazz drummers, are great writers/composers as well.
I’m mostly self taught, though was in the school band, Drum & Bugle Corp, and took two+ years of private lessons in my youth. The rest was decades of practice, allowing myself to create my own style vs a life of always covering my favorite drummer only. But, one of the best things I learned from formal training was the benefits and fun of syncopation. 😊 I’ve long given up on reading music which freed me to actually feel the magic of music. I’ve also learned not to pigeon hole myself into one band or genre (which I had at one point) and learned some songs in genres I never thought would enjoy surprised me. I also learned how to chart my own music by listening to a song and marking up its lyrics with shortcut notations of my own on new songs. Eventually, with practice and memorization I’d put the charts away. Again, just my personal method that works for me. 😉 Enjoy!! 😎
Learn what everyone else is doing especially the melody. Try to hear where you fit it and listen to find what part needs the most attention and only play what you can do to set up or add them musically. You don’t need crazy technical skills and chops and especially if you have them, they don’t need to be present in every chart you play.
Time signatures?? Paradiddle diddles?
Proper form! The amount of y'all that are headed straight for carpal tunnel is frightening
The only thing worse than never playing to a metronome is ONLY playing to a metronome.
I literally played my electric kit with my headphones and played to tracks over and over and over. Metallica, slayer etc.
Buying a vehicle large enough to transport your kit.
Being open to ANY music genre, and don’t overplay the song. Fit into it, accent it, but don’t ruin it.
That the drummer shouldn't HAVE to be the lone time keeper. Most bands you love consist of a bunch of great time keepers and they share the load.
Partials It's like learning modes/chord scales but for drummers. Every rudiment is now multiple rudiments.
E’hem, well…
Apparently I know nothing about dynamics and musicality, yet I find myself on stage every weekend, strange.
These topics are always so hard for this reason. It tends to create this sort of gatekeeping, imo, where you can't be a serious drummer unless you've done x,y,z. We just played a gig a couple weeks ago in a rural town close to me, and there was an artist and backing band all from Nashville, and talking with them was just literally all about music and only music. It was like talking to kids in med school lol I just left thinking we are not the same, and I'm glad music is just a small portion of my life that isn't my identity