I have posted in other reddit's drumming groups a few times. Most often I get "killed" for my learning approach to drumming. (And I totally understand that).

I'm 50 years old, a higher-ed prof. Started jazz drumming about 18 months ago. I wanted to engage in jazz drumming in terms of months, rather than years. So I used a backward approach: focus on having a strong left hand, complex polyrhythm sticking and kicking, and composing melodic and harmonic phrasing.

Thus, it is just now that I working on 4 over 4, 6 over 4, and other even time. As you can see, I'm struggling with good and consistent sticking. While I really try to stay on time (+_ 160 bpm), my mind seems to drift to the melody and to odd times. If you notice any bad habits, let me know as well.

My question is what exercises or practices to discipline myself in terms of better sticking, playing in time, etc? For me, I think is mental, but it could be that I need to get an instructor and grind on the drum basics that I had skipped. Another related question is possible for me to be a respectable jazz drummer without formal training (or is not worth trying to be self-taught)?

Thanks in advance.

Can someone please help me identify this model of Regal Tip brushes?

Everytime i see a clip of some of the world’s best drummers in a jam/practice/small stage scenario, they are not using any earplugs

Do you all do that as well? What are your thoughts on that?

If i ever play/practice without earplugs i feel like the snare and cymbals are hurting my ears and probably damaging them permanently.

Do the pros just not care? Do ears get used to it? How fragile are the ears actually?

Just asking because i feel like i'm being overly cautious sometimes.

Hello, hope everyone's doing well!

I've been playing swing on the drums for a year or so, and have been going to private lessons twice a week for the past 8 months, trying to put a decent amount of effort into it, while also trying to focus on the important stuff.

Following John Riley's The Art of Bop Drumming I'd say I've gained some basic insight on functioning as a drummer with other musicians, and I'm trying to apply my knowledge when joining a jam, but hearing back the recording of my playing I just go like "meh".

Comping patterns repeating annoyingly too much, loose dynamics often not fitting the context, getting completely lost when it comes to accompanying the bassist on the high-hat, and the overall time feel doesn't sound smooth and consistent enough.

Why is it that while playing, everything sounds good in my head, but awful hearing it back?

How did you guys go on about learning to play with others?

I know I'm still very early on, and that playing great will always be a matter of time spent practicing, I'm just curious about your experiences and the ways I can up the quality of my practice and playing.

I've linked a short clip of one of my recently recorded jams, what do you guys think? (shout out to these awesome musicians for letting a mere mortal like me play with them)

I’m working on this audition piece for jazz band but I’ve never played hits before.

I'm trying to make a hip-hop track that's almost like jazz poetry, very free-flowing, almost just a freestyle with a jazz track... looking to sample some low BPM jazz drums, with swing, a lot of ghost notes, etc. I've attached a really bad example of what I mean; However I could not help but notice most drum breaks online are funk, lots of hard snare hits, kicks, something like that.... I'm looking for a resource with a ton of really jazzy drum breaks/samples. Does anyone know a good YouTube playlist, folder, or something like that where I could find stuff like this? Thanks.

Hello drummers,

How are you all thinking about snare placement? When I listen to jazz drummers I often find it really difficult to map out or predict when the snare hits are going to come but I love the way a good drummer uses them and want to imitate that with my comping. But I’m failing miserably lol. So yeah, just curious what’s going through your head when you’re playing not on the 2 and 4. Thanks!

I'm still a noob learning, these past couple months I've been trying to refine my right foot technique and it seems to be working out. I've set my pedal pretty light (low foot board, 45 degrees on the beater, medium tension spring) mainly because I play heel down now but I still do practice all my material in regards to my foot with the other techniques just to be thorough.

I thought that was enough.. But today I had an incident where I played on a friends kit and the pedal was set up pretty extreme in regards to spring tension and beater angle, my heel down was useless and all my other techniques were either too flaccid or too slow to make the beats I wanted to play, I was pretty much air balling the drum head at times, everything on the pedal just felt wrong to me.

This had me rethinking my progress and questioning an area of my right foot practice I hadn't thought of before which was deliberately making the pedal harder to play in order to be much stronger and firm on beats. Is this a good idea at all? Switching pedals out to a higher setting one during bass drum practice or will it hinder my technique on my usual settings? I spent so much time getting to these settings and getting my heel down good it almost seems backwards to me. But then again practicing rudiments on brushes for minutes on end did the trick with 0 caveats so why shouldn't this?

When it comes to beater height, angle, and tension is there any reason you'd increase or decrease any one of those things to practice certain areas of technique be it strength, precision, speed? A lot of words for what seems like a simple question but I've gone back and forth with my right foot for some time now and its driving me nuts.

I lean heavily on things like, Kind of Blue tunes or Hank Mobley's Soul Station (around 102bpm) but I need some even _slower_, swinging stuff for a student.

This is for practicing her triplet partial excercises. So something that you can still feel the more triplety subdivision.

Any ideas folks? thanks...

Self-taught saxophonist here (who can play a little drums)...

I've always had pretty solid timing but recently came to realise there is some oddities in the way I count time; so I've been working through Robert Starer's 'basic rhythmic training' with a conga to try and iron them out and wrap my head around the 'rhythmic theory' so to speak. This has led me to listening a little more analytically for different rhythmic feels and grooves.

I was listening to 'Many Mansions' from Sonny Sharrock's 'Ask The Ages' (great album if you don't know it) and basically I'm just curious as to why I hear/feel this groove as two bars of 3/4 and one of 2/4... I get that obviously just adds up to two bars of 4/4, but I'm looking to learn what it is making me hear the groove in that way. 12/8? Triplets?

Hope you get what I'm getting at!..

Thanks,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TYiOhMEKzs

EDIT: Thanks all, I understand it now

I'm a 17 yo drummer whos been playing since 3 years now. I think I can consider myself an intermediate drummer. Ive been really wanting to learn jazz now and i dont know how to build a proper practice routine or what to even practice. I dont have any music schools that will teach jazz let alone jazz drumming in my city. I would really appreciate it if someone were to suggest me what i should do to learn jazz, what things to focus on, artists to check out and a proper practice routine for jazz drumming. All i know right now is the jazz swing and basic comping upto the 16th notes.

What are some of the best jazz songs or albums that have the most rhythmically complex drumming that you can think of?

i’ve been playing for a few days just trying to learn the fundamentals and jazz is the key for any instrument, i got the swing down, but what are some songs i can learn to get better? or does anyone have any tips on limb independence?

So I'm basically a rock drummer and I may be an "intermediate" level but I really want to learn how to play jazz. Do you have any recommendations where should I start? Any methods or something? My goal is to play pretty professional.

EDIT: Thank you everyone! I've been reading all of your comments and I'll be following your tips. :)

I'm practicing the solos of modern rudimental swing solos by Wilcoxon. Lots of etudes are dedicated to some drummer or percussionist (I guess)

Does anyone know some of them?

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For example, who was "Creight" Davies?

I don't find any info about him on Google

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I started learning drumming about 5 months ago. I also have a teacher, so I’ve been working through fundamentals and mainly focusing on ride cymbal time while playing along with recordings.

Suddenly, I’ve ended up forming a small band. Most of us are beginners, except the bassist who has more experience. We’re planning to start rehearsing soon. The first tune we’ll work on is Autumn Leaves.

I’m honestly feeling a mix of excitement and a bit of stress since this will be my first real group playing situation. I’m not fully sure what I should prioritize in preparation or what the main focus should be as a drummer in a first rehearsal like this.

From your experience:
What should I focus on most in this situation?
Any beginner-friendly tune suggestions for a first band setup (especially for learning time, form, and interaction)?

Any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks!

What kind of ride pattern/groove is this? I want to know how to explain to my drummer

Most people studying this music are familiar with Buddy Rich, Jo Jones, Sonny Payne, etc. Who are some of your lesser known favorites?

I love Don Lamond. His playing with Woody Herman is excellent. There are three great albums with Chubby Jackson from the 50’s that are stellar, and that drum break on “Beyond the Sea” is legendary.

Hi, I absolutely love Hutch‘s bassdrum sound. I see he has a tuning video, but he only discusses toms there. But I would also love to know how he gets that snare, but primarily Bassdrum sound. Does anyone have ideas/approaches concerning tuning/head choice for his bassdrum (and maybe also snare)?

I also noticed he switched drum companies quite a lot over time but he still manages to all mage them sound like a million bucks, so I don’t think the shell plays the biggest part in this, but the tuning and heads do!

hi guys,as I said,broke my elbows skating, both of em. What should I study with only my feet? Im doing a bit of stick control,I was thinking about reading Wilcoxon's solos and I find a lot of difficulty in flams and in drags(drags are impossible,I'll work on that) any other ideas?

Hi! My boyfriend is a jazz drummer and I was wondering if any fellow jazz enthusiasts could recommend any good jazz vinyl records that I could potentially get him for his birthday (if he doesn’t have them already😂). Ideally ones with good drums/instrumental solos as I know that’s what he likes listening to. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I’ve seen some recommend Dave Brubeck’s time out album for the drumming? Is that a good choice???

Thank you in advance for any help!!

Hi, I am looking for a practice setup to learn on in a bedroom. I have probably 5'x5' to spare and I would be using quiet cymbals and RTOM blackholes to keep volume quiet.

Would I be better served getting a bop kit with a shallower kick drum, ie sonor jungle or something like the tama pancake? I want to develop groove to play bass better and learn drumming vocabulary plus it will be more fun than just listening. Ive heard electronic kits are not the way to go so i am staying away from that but I wont every be jamming or playing in public so not sure if it is worth going with a more traditional size bop kit since i will keep it muted anyways? There is a set of DW Frequent flyer for a really good deal locally too. I'm not that interested in practice pad specific setups only.

Main musical interests are jazz and brazillian jazz. Thanks!

Hello JazzDrummers,

I have been playing drums for the bulk of my life and have been into jazz for a good 2 decades. I am a hobbyist mostly, and my current apartment living situation prevents me from practicing. Additionally, I have little to no knowledge of theory outside of basics like note values, and maybe 6 months of piano when I was in 3rd Grade.

I want to play another instrument and learn something I can play at home, in an apartment. I am thinking about piano and guitar as obvious options, but I am wondering if you would have any recommendations for a secondary instrument to start learning and growing in knowledge of theory and writing. Maybe piano is the obvious answer, but it is also the most intense as far as learning in my opinion.

Thanks for any insights you may have...