{"id":5744,"date":"2017-03-17T08:42:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T15:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/blog\/?p=5744"},"modified":"2023-03-05T15:23:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T23:23:53","slug":"self-taught-drummer-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/self-taught-drummer-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Drumming Tips For A Self Taught Drummer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cYl3X-mICeY\/\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Today it seems more and more drummers are self taught compared to having taken drum lessons from a teacher. Whether or not this is a good idea is another topic for another time, but today, Jimmy Rainsford will be providing five tips for all of you drummers who decided to tackle this instrument solo. In fact, even drummers who <em>have<\/em> taken lessons should take these into account!<\/p>\n<h3>1) Play To Your Favorite Music<\/h3>\n<p>Stick on some headphones, put on your favorite song, get behind the kit, and start playing along. Try your best to figure out what the drummer is doing and add your own ideas! Start with music you&#8217;re familiar with so you already know the overall structure and feel. Playing to music is why we started drumming in the first place anyways, isn&#8217;t it? This will help you jump into tip #2, which is&#8230;<\/p>\n<h3>2) Play With Other Musicians<\/h3>\n<p>If you know people who play other instruments, get together and play! When you start jamming\u00a0with other people, they\u00a0can give you direct feedback on your drumming. Take it all in and cater your practice sessions to those weaknesses. It will also teach you valuable listening skills: when to lay back, when to play a fill, and being aware of what the other musicians are doing.<\/p>\n<h3>3) Practice With A Metronome<\/h3>\n<p>Whether you purchase a physical metronome or download one for free on your phone, it&#8217;s\u00a0an absolute must for ALL drummers. Keeping good time is the most important aspect\u00a0of drumming, so practice everything you play with a metronome. Grooves, fills, rudiments, solos &#8211; anything!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/fun-metronome-exercise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Related: Fun and Useful Metronome Exercise With Mark Kelso \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>4) Record Your Playing<\/h3>\n<p>Audio AND Video. Put the camera up and start recording. This will allow you to look back at your playing and see your bad habits, overall technique, posture, and so on. Seeing your drumming from a 3rd person point of view is extremely valuable. It will help you catch bad habits you&#8217;ve developed so you can work on fixing them right away!<\/p>\n<h3>5) Listen To All Styles Of Music<\/h3>\n<p>Chances are when you first started listening to music, you only listened to one or two genres and ignored the rest. This can really limit your drumming vocabulary! I encourage you to expand your horizons and start listening to other types of music&#8230; All the way from jazz to metal.\u00a0 You&#8217;d be surprised how much of what you learn will carry into all other styles of playing.<\/p>\n<h3>Bonus Tip: Be Yourself<\/h3>\n<p>We hear this a lot\u00a0in music these days, but not many people actually apply it. They&#8217;re constantly chasing the sound or style of their favorite musician. It&#8217;s great to have influences and inspirations, but you need to remember that you&#8217;re unique and you can bring things to the table that your favorite drummers can&#8217;t. Find your strengths and own them!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>More Lessons by Jimmy Rainsford<\/b>:<br \/>\n\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/tips-for-good-grooves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">3 Tips To Good Sounding Grooves<\/a><br \/>\n\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/learn-drum-fills-by-ear\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How To Learn Drum Fills By Ear<\/a><br \/>\n\u25ba<a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/fat-snare-sound\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How To Get A Fat Snare Sound<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today it seems more and more drummers are self taught compared to having taken drum lessons from a teacher. Whether or not this is a good idea is another topic for another time, but today, Jimmy Rainsford will be providing five tips for all of you drummers who decided to tackle this instrument solo. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4029,4018],"tags":[13,501,408,152],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5744"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17587,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744\/revisions\/17587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}