Nervousness and a little bit of fear hung on me as I walked into my very first drum lesson. I was a young 15 year old who had taken piano lessons for 7 years, but even those 7 years hadn’t prepared me for this new step out of my comfort zone. I liked the familiar, and I even thrived off of habit and consistency. But I’d known deep down inside for a long time that I really wanted to take drum lessons… one day… when I was older… when I was less scared of learning something totally new. One day I’d be more grown up and confident, able to take on a new challenge with ease and proudly join a band and be a great rock drummer. After all, that really had been my ultimate dream for a few years now. But now on this afternoon in May I found myself stumbling directly into this distant and even terrifying dream, and there was no turning back.

Armed with my SD1 drumsticks I’d purchased a few years before for a “junior drumline”...

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...