I have summarized in a few pages what I’ve figured out in many years of personal experience in the field. Irrespectively of what your level is or what you would like to do with your drumming, this will really help you in clarifying what’s right for you, and how to get there.

These are the steps that I have discovered are necessary to learn a song at a professional level. They will make the learning process a lot faster and more effective. I see many drummers doing these steps in reverse order - as I also did for a long time 🙂

Find out the principles of how to play great drum solos! Are you trying to impress or are you trying to say something meaningful? A good drum solo should be interesting, moving, it should tell a story using creative ideas, space, contrast. And also colors (sounds), dynamics, different subdivisions and cool rhythmic figures.

Odd times are a very interesting topic. Even if we end up never playing an odd time beat, spending some time practicing them is going to improve our musicianship in many ways. I’ve created a bunch of loops, one for each major odd time, so that you can start practicing them within minutes: it's all mp3 files.

This happens to be one of the most enlightening ideas I love to show to my students when they are going through a hard time. If I’m practicing a lot, I expect to get better and better, in a regular, linear process. Unfortunately that’s an ideal, and that’s not how things work in reality.

I collected ten fundamental principles that you can use as a guide to assess if you are really making music with your drumming. And to help you become a musician who plays the drums.