Stringing things together

Do you ever struggle stringing ideas together? Do you struggle to improvise freely when you’re put on the spot? Most drummers struggle with this because they never practice the right things.

I’ve talked a lot about vocabulary and improvising before; there’s a YouTube video I made on vocabulary a few months ago that has already hit 230,000 views. That one was a fairly broad discussion on improvising with some foundational exercises, but I thought I’d share a 3-minute clip from a new video which is an example of taking only three patterns and trying to improvise and make the most of them:

Take a look:

It’s important to dedicate time to exploring on your own…for long periods of time. Take three patterns like this, find a variation (or two) for each and then spend time exploring how you can string them together. And remember, time and sound is everything. We can all play the patterns that we hear Steve Gadd play; it’s his time and sound that makes it so good. For everything that you play, whether it’s in the practice room or on stage, you should be thinking about consistency of time and the quality of sound you’re drawing from the drums. Those are the factors that will take you to the next level.

The full lesson and accompanying PDF worksheet is available in the members area of my school - playbetterdrums.com. You can join for less than $1-a-day and get access to nearly 400 videos!

Happy drumming,

Louie