There’s an important practicing truth that is the key to really mastering anything on the drums. Without following this key truth, you’ll never fully learn something to your best ability. What’s interesting, though, is that a percussion piece written for solo gong actually teaches us a lot about this piece of “practice wisdom.”

“Having Never Written a Note for Percussion” by James Tenney is a solo percussion piece consisting of one note:

The instructions are simply to play a roll on any instrument for a “very long" time. Generally the instrument of choice is a gong because of how interesting and complex its tones are. So most of the time, a percussionist will sit down on the floor in front of the hanging gong, poised to play a very, very long single stroke roll with two large mallets on the face of the gong. Here’s a video of a good performance of the piece if you want to check it out.

So what can this piece teach...

I learned the hard way that trying to impress other musicians with your playing will get you nowhere. That’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make, and I was making it constantly in high school and even into college.

When playing with other musicians, especially if they were well-experienced pros, my priority was constantly to “show them what I got” and make sure they could tell that I’m a “good drummer.” I felt like I needed to demonstrate at least a little of my technical ability every so often so that they knew I could play more than just groove and time. I needed to throw a 32nd note fill in there so they could see my facility around the kit. Most of all, I needed to look like I was working hard to make these things happen - because I was a “good drummer” with fast hands. Then after the gig I was pretty much just dying for feedback from the guys I’d played with. I wanted to hear anything - but especially some good...

What is your default? What’s the one thing you rely on that you can gravitate toward and lean on in a tough musical situation? In other words - What are you so comfortable doing that you can excel at it while chaos ensues around you? A recent gig made me think about this…

A drummer friend in town asked me to sub for him on a cover gig. I eagerly accepted, mainly because I like the challenge of learning new songs in a less familiar genre. Sometimes I get so into the groove (no pun intended?) on my regular gigs that it’s easy to stop growing as a musician. When the opportunity came to play with people I’d never met at a venue I’d never played at…playing a lot of unfamiliar songs…I jumped at the chance.

My friend sent me a setlist of the tunes they most commonly played at this particular club, so I got to work charting about 30 songs. I enjoy gig prep, and I love being forced to listen to stuff I don’t hear everyday in order...

Time is relative.

I was recently playing with a really great bass player. We were tightly grooving together, and everything felt natural and musical. We were playing to a click, but there were certain spots in songs where I felt the groove naturally wanting to push or lay back. I was able to ride just ahead then just behind the click, and he was right with me the whole way. On top of the tightly knit drums-and-bass relationship, the other musicians were super locked in as well. Whether we as a band were leaning forward on the beat - or behind - everything was solid, and everything felt natural. This was all made possible by the fact that EVERYONE was listening and EVERYONE was completely aware of the time feel. This circles us back around to that opening phrase there… Time is relative.

If a band is playing super tight, but their tempo is swaying slightly, the listener won’t notice. If a band is playing to a click, but everyone isn’t...

Today I just want to throw out this interesting and kind of controversial drumming question:

Should we actually set speed goals in our practicing and work on getting faster on the drums?

The two main camps in the drumming world offer opposing opinions on this…

There’s the “chops” world - The school of thought that pushes quick hand technique, impressive foot technique, and lightning-fast fills around the kit. Then there’s the “groove” world - The school of thought that puts groove, feel, and vocabulary before speed and technique. For some reason most drummers fall into one of these two camps. Now the “chops” camp was a bigger deal back in the 70s and 80s with the onset of jazz “fusion,” led by drummers like Dave Weckl and Dennis Chambers. That was when every young drummer had the dream of going to music school at Berklee, where one might learn how to attain such drumming...