If You’re Doing It Right, You Won’t Hear It Let’s detail some of the techniques commonly used to maximize your practice session with metronomes. Once you’ve got it though, you can forget the equipment itself and focus on the actual playing. Whatever option above you end up going with, it’ll probably take some fiddling and experimentation to get it just right. Most of these electronic kits also have metronomes built in, which is definitely a plus. Electronic kits afford you with a quiet playing experience and ability to pump anything into your headphones/speakers along with the sound of your playing. Electrify ’em: While playing an electronic drum set has its downsides over playing acoustic drums, it definitely has its advantages too.There are all sorts of methods for reducing the volume of your acoustic drums, many of which I have outlined on this blog. Muffle ’em: Drums don’t necessarily have to be loud.This option has the extra added bonus of giving you hearing protection, which is vital for any drummer. Headphone it: Wear isolating headphones and plug them into your metronome so that you can hear both equally loud.Amplify it: Run the metronome through some sort of PA system to make it sound as loud as your drums.As such, there are essentially four options for being able to hear a metronome while you’re playing drums: The trick is really to get the volumes of your playing and the device to match. In order to be able to practice with one, you should be able to hear it. Simply put: drums are loud! Metronomes aren’t (unless they are amplified). For example, if you are starting your practice session at 60 BPM, play the 20 reps and then bump the speed up to 64 BPM. Incremental Speed Increase: After that, my ‘go-to’ increment for increasing speed is about 4 BPM.You can adjust the number of repetitions based on the length of the phrase. A good starting point is 20-30 repetitions for something short like a rudiment or a 2 bar drum beat. Repetition: I will then play the phrase several times in a row at this tempo.Again, this allows me to concentrate on technique, avoid bad habits and build muscle memory. Start Slow: I usually start practicing a phrase or beat about 10-20 BPM (Beats Per Minute) slower than where I start to feel uncomfortable playing the rhythm.Here are a few steps to help you ensure you are properly increasing your speed while practicing: What they find however, is that they aren’t mastering the skill as quickly as they would otherwise, and they are also building and/or reinforcing bad habits and sloppy playing technique! It goes without saying that this is NOT GOOD! Many drummers make the mistake of thinking they can just start practicing something at a fast pace in order to gain proficiency. I cannot emphasize this enough: Starting slow and building up speed over time is absolutely vital to practicing those phrases which you want to perfect. This allows me to concentrate on my technique and develop muscle memory for what it is that I am playing. In doing so, I am making sure that I don’t have any technical limitations keeping me from playing the phrase perfectly. Best Practices for Metronome PracticeĪs mentioned above, I typically start quite slow when practicing with a metronome (also called a ‘click’, especially in the recording studio) in order to make sure that I am playing the phrase, rudiment or beat I want to learn perfectly. That’s the simple answer – but as you can imagine, there is a whole lot more to perfecting the art of practicing with a metronome! Let’s dig into the details a bit more and discuss some tips which you can implement today to improve your drumming tomorrow. You can tell if you are playing perfectly with it if you can’t hear the metronome itself as your drum will mask its sound. So, how do you practice drums with a metronome? The general rule of thumb is to set a slow tempo at first and gradually increase the speed of the metronome as you become more comfortable with what you are trying to play. This was so fundamental to me developing my abilities quickly and eventually going to music school, that I thought I would write about it and share some of the lessons that I learned along the way. I spent many years of my childhood “practicing” drums but it wasn’t until I started using a metronome correctly that my craft as a drummer really took off.
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