Explore the Free Resources! AllCareerChopsConceptsCreativityFree ExcerptsGearGreat DrummersGrooveGroove MastersInsightsInterpretationLoopsMusicianshipPhrasingPracticingStudio RecordingStylesTechniqueTheoryTiming Welcome To The Confident Drummer Blog! My objective is to contribute and create value for the drumming community, with interesting, cutting-edge drum knowledge, to provide effective… 1 Month Drum Challenge – Free Drum Course I’d like to introduce my work with this method. I’ve called it a challenge because it is, in many ways.… Top 10 Drum Pro Insights Today I‘d like to share with you a collection of the top 10 most important insights I have had over… WorkBook And Notes – To Practice More Effectively We've heard a million times how quality beats quantity. That's especially true in improving your drumming skills! I believe the… 40 Steve Jordan Grooves + Video & Pdf Transcriptions Steve Jordan is one of the greatest drummers of our time. Here is a tribute to his amazing grooves. You… Musical Rudiments Workout – 2 Snare Drum Solos with Transcription Rudiments can be not only very useful as far as technique goes, but also incredibly fun and musical to play.… The 10 Principles of Being a Musician Who Plays the Drums I collected ten fundamental principles that you can use as a guide to assess if you are really making music… The Learning Curve This happens to be one of the most enlightening ideas I love to show to my students when they are… Play Along – Odd Time Drum Loops Odd times are a very interesting topic. Even if we end up never playing an odd time beat, spending some… Unmusical vs Musical Drum Solo Find out the principles of how to play great drum solos! Are you trying to impress or are you trying… 10 Steps To Master a Song These are the steps that I have discovered are necessary to learn a song at a professional level. They will… Drumming Career – Tips and Inspiration – 2024 Ed. I have summarized in a few pages what I’ve figured out in many years of personal experience in the field.… 40 Jeff Porcaro Grooves + Video & Pdf Transcriptions Jeff Porcaro is one of the greatest drummers ever lived. This is a little tribute to his incredible groove. I’ve… Musical & Creative Inverted Paradiddle Applications Let’s get creative with paradiddles! Like with anything else, it’s not about playing them as fast as possible. It’s about… Instagram Drum Quotes – to Get you Inspired & Motivated! The Confident Drummer project includes an Instagram page. The main idea behind this profile is using it as a space… 10 Ways to Overcome your Insecurities This is a topic that I really care about, as you can tell by the name of this website. First… 7 Cool and Musical PolyRhythms In this study we learn 7 of the most interesting polyrhythms. From the classic examples to a couple of really… 3 Effective Approaches to Practicing a Difficult Drum Exercise Have you ever happened to face a challenging study or exercise and feel totally stuck? Today I'd like to show… Increasing Dynamic Control – Snare Drum & Grooves As I always like to tell my students, music includes 3 elements: harmony/melody, rhythm and dynamics.As drummers of course we… 10 Amazing Drummers You Don’t Know Don’t get me wrong, these guys are popular and accomplished musicians. It’s just that they are so good that in… John JR Robinson Grooves – 40 Transcriptions – Video & Free Pdf “I fell in love with your groove the first time I heard you, and that’s why I tried to steal… One Minute Confidence Booster – Instant Empowerment Visualization As drummers we need so many tools in order to sound good under any circumstances. Pressure, tension, insecurities, stage fright,… Creative Drum Groove Arrangement Techniques This is something producers and musicians who program drum arrangements know very well, and that paradoxically as drummers we don’t… How to Develop Musicality – Focusing on the How of Drumming with Parameters There are drummers out there who play the simplest, and yet they are great, amazing musicians. Why? Because they focus… Advanced Metronome Practice Techniques – Improve Your Internal Clock With These Two Powerful Exercises Today we are going to see a couple of powerful studies which will make playing with a metronome completely effortless.… Music Equals One Divided By Ego I love simplicity. Because it’s powerful. Music = 1/Ego. I think this elegant equation sums it up perfectly: the more… 6 Vinnie Colaiuta Licks – Video Demo and Transcriptions Vinnie is the best: pure genius, energy, instinct, and just the right amount of craziness, are channeled into a unique… Improve Your Groove and Bass Drum Technique with Fat Back Talking about groove, the Fat Back is definitely one of the most important techniques we can study to improve it… How To Build An Effective Practice Routine – The Ultimate Guide To Practicing Drums Let’s start with a very important premise: the best practice is playing music with other musicians, especially with musicians that… 5 Ways To Interpret A Drum Chart Simply put, reading music is not about reading but is about interpretation. That’s why being a good reader is not… The Four Parts Of Drumming – A New Understanding To Help You Improve Faster Using models and frameworks is extremely useful when trying to master complex subjects like the art of drumming. They are… Drum Chops Mastery – Gospel Chops & Beyond – Free Excerpt 50 hours of shot footage, 2000 hours of work, more than 10 years of research. Condensed in 270 pages, 950… Care More About Truth Than Perfection – Why I Never Edit My Drum Tracks Personally, I came to the point where I never edit anything I do. Not because I’m flawless, but because I… 4 Studies To Improve Your Four Way Coordination – Free Mini Course I love shortcuts, and I always try to find ways to distill the best examples for each topic I cover,… Groove Workout & Tools – Altitude Drumming Volume 7 – Free Excerpt Groove is magic, groove makes you move, groove is when you see heads nodding in front of you. There’s nothing… 6 Aaron Spears Licks – Video Demo and Transcriptions If we are interested in studying and analyzing the greatest drummers of the Gospel scene, Aaron Spears is the perfect… Discover Your Voice – Tips To Develop Your Unique Sound as a Drummer One crucial aspect of our uniqueness is sound. In the same way that a person’s voice is part of what… Hands & Mechanics – Altitude Drumming Volume 2 – Free Excerpt There are many different approaches to study drumming hand technique. However, I believe it’s crucial to start with a very… Hi-Hat Embellishments – 20 Advanced Grooves Music is about colors. And drumming is pretty much based on colors. There are so many nuances, variations, details and… It takes 10.000 Hours – The Simple Rule to Become a Great Drummer It’s not the years that we have been playing that make the difference. It’s the hours How long does it… Coordination & Independence – Altitude Drumming Volume 4 – Free Excerpt A classic mistake many drummers make in their formative years is focusing exclusively on pure hand and foot technique, assuming… The Importance of Studying With a Teacher + How To Find The Right One For You What’s the reason why it’s so effective to study with a teacher rather than being self taught? There are four… Improve Your Improvisational Skills – 5 Jam Along Loops The shortcut to fluent and flowing drumming is to dedicate lots of practice time to jamming and improvising. This is… Phrasing & Fills – Altitude Drumming Volume 5 – Free Excerpt Phrasing is a topic of fundamental importance for every drummer, as it constitutes at least half of what we do.… One Song – 3 Levels – Learn How To Create Your Own Drum Parts Creating drum beats is part of the process of writing and arranging a song and here we are going to… 10 Types of Drumming Mistakes + Solutions Making mistakes is the cause of way too much anxiety to most musicians. The reason is that we tend to… Bass Drum & Feet – Altitude Drumming Volume 3 – Free Excerpt We hear all the time how important it is to build a strong foundation, no matter what the subject is.… Quintuplets – Drum Grooves – Fills – Practice Loops Quintuplets are the coolest thing when it comes to fresh sounding beats and fills. This is the classic situation in… Fast Learning – How to Quickly Improve on The Drums I’d like to share with you a few powerful concepts and techniques to learn more effectively, which can really make… Theory & Concepts – Altitude Drumming Volume 1 – Free Excerpt Who said that drummers don't need to know any theory to play? Over the years I have discovered that having… 10 Top Drummers’ Signature Licks Some drummers have a lot of them and some have none, but signature licks are fascinating. And they are one… One Groove – Eight Tempos – 40 to 180 BPM We typically focus on learning new beats, and, generally speaking, we assume that if we can play something at 100… 100 Bar Drum Challenge – Become a More Precise Drummer – Free Practice Recording Session Template Would you like to do a quick reality check? Then this is for you. The idea is really simple: record… How to Listen to Music – Active Listening for Drummers Just in the same way that perfectly learning a language, its words and its grammar, doesn’t automatically make us poets,… Advanced Drum Permutations – 1 Groove – 1 Fill – 29 Variations To permutate simply means shifting a phrase and assigning to it a new downbeat, starting in different spots every time,… Groove Mastery & Formulas – Altitude Drumming Volume 8 – Free Excerpt Ask any musician what's the number one thing they look for in a drummer. The answer is invariably groove and… 30 Ways to Practice a Vinnie Colaiuta Lick We all love Vinnie, and there are no words to describe what he has done for drumming in the last… The Ultimate Drum Grooves Collection – 80 Contemporary Beats Being a good drummer means many things, and one of these is definitely knowing rhythms in all main subdivisions and… Understanding Metric Modulation – 6 Studies In this free booklet I'd like to share with you an in-depth analysis of all the concepts necessary to grasp… Best Free Online Drumming Resources Instead of spending hours looking for high quality free drumming resources, check out this list. I've done the work for… Interpretation & Arrangement – Altitude Drumming Volume 9 – Free Excerpt I believe arranging a drum part is one of the most fulfilling aspects of making music with drums and cymbals.… 10 Amazing Records That Will Inspire You I'd like to share with you ten masterpieces that will profoundly influence your style and inspire you. Learning from a… Ghost Notes Crash Course – Improve Ghost Note Control Ghost notes are one of the most effective ways to make a beat more interesting, to personalize it and to… 40 Vinnie Colaiuta Grooves + Video & PDF Transcriptions Vinnie needs no presentation. This is a little tribute to the astounding grooves he has played in a variety of… Drum Technique Booster – The Masters’ Approach – Free Excerpt I decided to combine all the knowledge gathered in over two decades and synthesize it in a comprehensive 500 pages… 14 Ready to Use Drum Fills – That Work Who doesn't like a great drum fill? Today I'd like to share with you 14 simple examples that are 'ready… 12 Advanced Ways to Play the Most Basic Drum Beat Tweaking and combining parameters like swing levels, Hi-Hat articulations or playing ahead or behind the beat, can turn even the… What are Micro Rhythms and Micro Timing – and Why they Matter Micro rhythms are tiny deviations from common, straight, on the beat patterns. Their subtleties contribute to our uniqueness, to shaping… 6 Gavin Harrison Licks – Video Demo and Transcriptions Recording studio wizard, Gavin has reached worldwide fame thanks to the incredible work he has done with Porcupine Tree. Needless… Swing Level Control – In Between, Narrow, Hard – Exercises, Grooves, Examples What if instead of just two feels, straight and swung, we could experiment with endless shuffle variations? In this lesson… Click & Timing – Altitude Drumming Volume 6 – Free Excerpt Drummers who are really good at playing time, and can do that musically and with feel, are pretty rare, and… Rhythmic Interpretation on The Drums – Techniques for Grooves and Fills Rhythmic interpretation is the essence of being creative drummers, and is about transposing rhythmic figures all over the Drum Set,… Drum Grooves Orchestrations – 16 Examples and Solutions The drum set is actually a small orchestra. 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In this multi… Playing Ahead or Behind the Beat – Full Course – Part 2: Exercises Once we have a clear understanding of the foundational concepts involved in playing ahead or behind the beat, it's time… Playing Ahead or Behind the Beat – Full Course – Part 3: Examples After having discovered the theory behind playing ahead or behind the beat in Part 1 of this series, and having… Brushes, Beaters, Small Percussions – 10 Creative Drum Grooves Who said that the Drum Set must be played only with sticks? 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That's the way my mentor, Alfredo Golino, put it, and there's no better way… Simulated Studio Session – Note for Note vs Interpreted Takes Doing sessions in the recording studio is one of the most exciting things for a drummer. Let's try this experience… Finger Control – Controlling Rebound with the Fingers Rebound is nothing but free energy, available to us at every stroke, and we simply have to learn how to… Mastery of Subdivisions – Theory and Applications to Improve Timing, Phrasing, Style It’s one thing to be able to play eighth notes throughout a song, and a whole different story to use… How to Choose and Adjust Bass Drum and Hi-Hat Pedals As important as it is to pick the right sticks, when it comes to drum pedals we have to be… 10 Advanced Licks Every Drummer Should Know When it comes to learning licks and developing chops it can be difficult to figure out what's worth spending time…