ok, Im a OK drummer, i play snare in our line. and our line isnt very good. and Im also sure that this has been asked quite a few times

i want to play in dci the year after next. Im not looking for some sort of get rich quick method of practice, just the methods that you more experienced drummers used to get to your level.

the only reason Im asking is because it seems that ive hit a plateau in my drumming.

thanks in advance

There's no such thing as a plateau in performance, in my honest opinion.

As long as you're doing reps, you're getting better. My suggestion is to look into things you don't know how to do. If you don't know how to play a rudiment, learn it. If you don't know how to play a certain grid, learn it. Gridding things has helped me tremendously, lately, and gridding different timing exercises is always a great thing to do. Those are sort of like the water and bread of your playing.

The last thing is just start slow. It's nice to hear you say, "I'm not going for a get rich quick method," this to me means that you know that it's all done just a little bit at a time. Take things slowly, then slowly work your way up. You'll get better.

Happy drumming!
B

Couldn't have said it better myself. Keep practicing, & even if you think you wont make a DCI line still go out to the audition camp next year, those 3 days are very helpful.

thanks guys. i didnt even think about going out for the audition camp, thats a good one.

what about the pillow/workout stuff?
or should i just stick with my invader

It depends on what you're practicing. If you're working to open up your diddles and gain some strength in your rolls, then practicing on a pillow helps tremendously. If you're trying to learn a lick, then playing with no rebound doesn't necessarily benefit you in those regards, so I would just stick to the pad.

alright. thanks

If you like to torture yourself like I do when I practice, pick a lick you want to learn from any of the corps exercises and just hack away at it until you get it. Setting the metronome to slow tempo and working away clears my mind oddly enough... odd things like eggbeaters and odd times are great brain workouts as well as chops builders.

My all time favorite is to play the phone book. Set a tempo, and play the rhythms in time as all single strokes...its amazing how adept you'll become at playing in and out of odd groupings like 273-9941 or something (2 8ths, a 7let, triplet, 2 9lets, 4 16ths, 1 quarter note). Fascinating stuff.

I'll be honest, I can't stand it when people do this. There are SO many more beneficial things to when playing as opposed to learning a corps lick. I feel like when someone does this, they typically pick something that's ENTIRELY over their head, they haphazardly learn it,then it just doesn't sound good, and it doesn't really benefit them too much. There's nothing wrong with picking something that's challenging, but I honestly think that things such as grids are much easier to use to track your playing ability, and are a good way to pace yourself as a drummer. It's difficult licks that are just fun to do on the side.

That's just my $0.02; feel free to disagree.

Haha, I use the term "torture" in a very self-deprecating way in this case. Maybe I'll clear this up, but what I meant was a lick that has some great fundamental things to learn. For instance, eggbeaters are a good exercise for odd meter and chops but I was having trouble working them into context in different time signatures. I happened to find some Troopres exercises that were perfect for this, so I spent an hour working on it.

Obviously everyopne is different, but this method is how I like to learn new takes on fundamental ideas. It's one thing to play a corp rudiment or some lick over and over again, but it's playing in context where you learn how they fit together with music.

Not disagreeing with BCaviness at all, I love grids. But sometimes I get focused wanting to learn one thing and I spend hours on it and every once in awhile it can be cathartic to say "OK, I always wanted to learn that and I finally did it". the key is keep at it everyday to internalize it.

negative karma? for asking for tips.........