5 Ways to Make Learning Drum Rudiments Easy

Drumming rudiments are the basics of learning to play the modern drum set. Although most drummers are agreed on the importance of mastering the rudiments, there is one problem that persists, it takes lots of repetitive practice and can become boring. Here are 5 ideas to make your practice more interesting.

Use a metronome - There is nothing like seeing improvements to keep you motivated to keep practicing. Keep notes of how fast you can play each rudiment and try to improve. In addition to playing at speed, try playing very accurately at slow tempos. This can be surprisingly difficult.

Set yourself goals - Set an achievable target goal for your drumming. For instance you could say that you want to "play the double paradiddle at 160bpm by the last day of the month". You could even give yourself a small reward if you reach your goal. Setting and achieving goals is an excellent way to stay motivated.

Practice during TV - Watching the television is a great time to practice your rudiments. It is so easy to waste an evening watching TV, but if you have your drumsticks around, you don't have to feel guilty. Your can tap out some rhythms on a practice pad or even quietly on a cushion. Multitasking at its finest!

Practice to tunes - Rather than simply practicing to a metronome, vary your routines by playing rudiments along to music. This is a great way to start thinking of how rudiments can actually fit into pieces of music.

Combine rudiments - Instead of practicing each of the individual routines separately, play several complimentary rudiments one after another and concentrate on making smooth transitions between them. For example, you could play singles, followed by doubles then paradiddles.

By using these ideas you will find that practising is much more fun and that you get a lot more out of your drumming. The aim is to get to a point where you are no longer thinking about the different patterns, your brain and hands just execute them automatically.

Although you can get behind a drum kit and start playing without learning the basics, you will be missing out a great deal. Many intermediate players find that they need to come back to learning the rudiments because they did not master them at an early stage and it is hindering their further progression.

So what are you waiting for? Practice time is now going to be a lot more fun.

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