What I'm Practicing Right NOW

In case you’re interested, I thought I’d share with you what I’m working on in my playing right now. Btw, let me know if you want to see/hear more on this topic, because I can certainly make a video (or a few videos) for the channel.

As many of you guys know, I lived in an apartment for almost three years. I just moved out when my wife and I bought a house this past April. Prior to the house, practicing was a pretty restricted activity with neighbors below me. I had to really focus my practicing to where I could get a lot done in a very short amount of time. However, I now have a basement space for which I am VERY thankful, where I can make as much noise as I want. This certainly changed my practice strategies, so I started adding some new specific things to my “practice list.”

First, a couple of thoughts to give you some context to my more “specific practicing points:”

1. I do spend a good bit of time practicing the basics. Unless I’m in a big hurry, I start off every practice session playing slow 8th notes on either my practice pad or snare drum. The big focus here is maintaining loose hand grip and smooth motion. These aspects always help lead to steady time, which is the other purpose of this exercise.
2. From there I’ll start up a pretty basic groove at a slow tempo, making sure to translate the smooth, steady motion to the whole kit. Staying relaxed is key if I’m going to play a simple groove at 60bpm without rushing. From there I might speed things up or get more creative with the groove.
3. At this point, I’ll move into the bulk of whatever I’m going to work on for the day. Here’s what that’s been lately:

• A good halftime shuffle. Think “Rosanna,” “Fool in the Rain,” Purdie Shuffle, etc. I’ve boiled the shuffle down to the core ingredients, and I work at improving these things every time I practice. This is a HARD type of groove to play well.
• That leads into the goal of tightening up my right hand and right foot more. Playing any groove with a quick hihat pattern requires “tightness,” and I focus a lot on making sure my timekeeping hand is locked with my right foot, no matter what either is playing. I’ll work on this by playing 16th-based closed hihat grooves, starting slowly then working up the tempo.
• That goal leads into a more musical goal I have of being able to comfortably hit any kind of rhythmic accent in the middle of any groove...at any time. If I’m grooving along around 80bpm, I want to be able to suddenly hit the “e” of beat 3 with the kick and right hand with confidence and precision. I’ll play grooves where my right foot goes off on a syncopated pattern, but my right hand follows it the whole way. This is the same idea as playing a paradiddle between right foot and left hand, with the right hand imitating the right foot.

I hope those things make sense! There are some other things I’ll pull into my practicing, but I’ll save them for another email. :) These things here have been the topics / goals that I’ve worked on most consistently over the last few months.

Let me know if you guys like hearing about my practicing! I love sharing about this sort of thing, so if this helps you out in any way - let me know. I can write more emails or even make some videos if you like. I’m curious to hear from you guys since I’ve never sent out an email on this topic before.

Take Care and God Bless,

Stephen