Alright, so having played Rock Band, I’ve been toying with the idea of learning to play the drums. It seems like fun, a good workout, great stress relief, and a way to perhaps turn the urge to tap fingers and toes into something potentially useful. That said, I was wondering about a couple things.
Drummers: Those of you who’ve done it for some time and gotten somewhat good at it: how did you start? What inspired you in such? How did you find practice time and space and utilize them in such a way as to keep the people around you from murdering you? I heard that there are practice pads one can buy to facilitate this; can you recommend any that are especially good?
Also, are there any songs that you particularly enjoyed playing?
Take private lessons. Sure, you can keep a beat without them, but you’ll start with poor technique, and if you ever get really into it, you’ll have such horrible habits that you’ll be limited for a very long time until you’re able to break them and relearn proper technique. I’ve been playing percussion for 20 years now, and while I don’t practice very often any more, because I started with good private lessons, I can still pick up the sticks and play some pretty difficult stuff (of course, it’s not as polished as when I’ve been practicing regularly, but I still have the skills). I took private lessons for 5 years, then played all through high school, doing symphonic band and marching band, where I was on the snare line. I maybe only play about once a month or two any more, but I love bringing out the sticks and some tough snare solos and working on them from time to time. It’s great!
I don’t have any drums any more. I played set for about 6 years, but haven’t played set since I went to college (13 years ago). I pretty much only play on my practice pad. For pads, get a RealFeel pad…they are WONDERFUL.
I’m in the same boat as CiaTH. I’m making the jump from Rock Band to real drumming. I decided on a Roland e-kit, mostly for the option to use headphones to keep noise to a minimum when necessary. I got a Roland TD-9 kit, but have heard good things about the entire Roland line.
Going the e-kit route will allow me to still play along with Rock Band or Guitar Hero via the MIDI port on the GH drum kit. The Roland kit plugs into the GH kit via a MIDI cord and the XBox or PS3 will recognize your hits on the Roland kit and score you as if you were still using the RB or GH drums. By turning down the in-game drum sounds and turning up the Roland volume, you’ll get a higher quality drum track, too. Doc_SoCal has a demo video of this setup on YouTube (link below). There’s also a few good threads in the RB forums if you’re interested Cat.
This has not been cheap, but again being able to practice late at night was my driving factor. I also wanted the games to still recognize my hits so I could gauge my accuracy.
Question for the experienced drummers: Are drum instructors willing to come to the student’s house for lessons, or is it more common to meet him/her at a music store and use a different kit?
I can definitely endorse getting a teacher–my grandson decided to pick up drumming and in addition to the lessons he got at school he also got some pointers from my son and son-in-law, both musicians with a lot of experience drumming. Neither of them has drums as a primary instrument, but due to flaky drummers over the years they’ve had to learn. Then on top of that, my daughter signed the kid up with a local private teacher, who used to play in the band Nu Shooz. He’s been playing for about a year and a half (he’s twelve) and I think the discipline of correct technique really shows. I could be fulla crap, though, on account of Grandma bias, so here’s a video of the kid playing with the school rock band, Trogdor–judge for yourself. They only practice together one hour a week but I think they do rather well. The last song is the one where they overcome their equipment challenges and bust loose. They really dig the Cake song!
I’ve been thinking about learning drums because of Rock Band too, but my wrists cramp up after a little session of Rock Band so I don’t think I’d do very well on real drums. I assume that sort of thing is relevant, though, and probably something I could get used to with lots of playing.
This. Lessons will give you all the technique stuff that you might never figure out just by fooling around and, like most anything, that’ll make everything easier, from simply reading music to rudiments and exercises to keep you sharp, to proper grip, to where to hit the drum to produce different sounds. All good stuff.
I played for six or seven years in grade school-high school, but quit when we moved across country when I was 17. Between the lessons and playing in the school’s percussion ensemble, I’ve pretty much played every instrument ever invented that you can hit with a stick, from basic snare stuff to xylophones to timpani to cowbells (more cowbell!). I haven’t completely lost everything since, and can still noodle around a bit on my drum pad or our piano, so the basics you pick up in lessons will stay with you for life.
Have fun!
ETA: Trogdor is an awesome name for a band! They burninated that school right down!
I started in 6th grade (11-12 years old?) back in the early 70’s. A couple of friends of mine played and they talked me into it and I took to it. I was playing the Baritone horn at the time. I played baritone in the band and took drums on the side in 6th grade then switched to drums full time in 7th. I think I started taking private lessons freshman year in high school and that accelerated things tremendously. I played through HS, college, and beyond.
Fortunately for me my elementary school band director was a drum and bugle corps guy, so he got me started on the rudiments right off the bat. Plus, one of the friends that got me started in the 6th grade was an excellent drummer who studied privately and I was inspired just by watching him. He’s a pro now, and played with some fairly big acts, so I was fortunate to have him as an early inspiration. He made my crappy drum set sound good just by playing it and made it all make sense.
[award ceremony speech]
I would also like to thank my parents who put up with years of me and my high school rock band playing or trying to play everything from Rush to Zeppelin to Queen to The Cars to The Outlaws, and not being able to sing hardly any of it. [/award ceremony speech]
To quote my mom: “At least I knew where you were”.
Nowadays I play mainly on my electronic Roland kit with headphones. I haven’t played out since around 2000 so it’s just for fun and now my girls (5 year old twins) are starting to mess around. One of them can actually lay down a beat I can play bass to!
