Better Practice Blog- Better Practice for Drum and Percussion Students
Better Practice for Drum and Percussion Students
Is Better Practice for percussion students?
We’ve gone over the ways band (and pep band, orchestra, etc.), guitar, and piano students use Better Practice, but what about drum students?
Drum practice is different from practicing other instruments like guitar or piano. Instead of memorizing scales, fingerings, or chords, drummers are learning a whole other set of skills unique to drums. Luckily, Better Practice has a lot of tools to help out drum students!
Build Strong Fundamentals
The key to becoming a great drummer is mastering rudiments. But mastery means continuous practice even after achieving levels of excellence. Like an NBA player still doing dribbling drills, or an Olympian swimmer still doing kicking exercises, rudiments are fundamental to drummers.
The Better Practice Review Engine makes it so easy to stay on top of rudiments! Instead of doing all 40 every day or having to keep a custom schedule of what was practiced and not, let the Review Engine do the work.
Well, how does it work? We created a book of rudiments in our app that you can use. If you haven’t learned all of them yet, pick out the ones you’re learning. Use any of our attached tools, including videos, to practice. After a week or so when you are moving on to a new set to learn, throw the old ones into the Review Engine! From now on, our smart engine will calculate which rudiments need more practice and make sure you practice accordingly. No more “I almost forgot how to do a flam paradiddle-diddle - I haven’t practiced it in so long!” We will keep you on top of it!
It doesn’t have to be just rudiments, either. Throw in any fills, patterns, or assignments in general that you want to make sure you have in your arsenal at all times - and our engine will help you make sure you don’t forget it!
Precision with Subdivision
The Better Practice metronome has many features to help you with your drum practice. The metronome allows you to easily jump between BPMs - so you don't have to interrupt your flow to make your metronome go faster or slower. You can also choose from a variety of common time signatures, including some odd-meter like 5/4 and 7/4. However, the most useful of all for drum students may be the subdivisions. Now you don’t have to calculate your BPM to be twice as fast when you want subdivisions. Keep the BPM steady and choose from quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and even triplet subdivisions!
Accelerated Learning
What do all music teachers universally say?
“SLOW DOWN!”
A lot of students, however, aren’t 100% sure what to do with that instruction; most will slow down once then go right back to the speed that they can’t play at. However, with Better Practice’s “Pick It Up Quick” design, we make it easy for the students to translate “SLOW DOWN!" into real results.
“Pick It Up Quick” refers to starting as slow as you can to play it perfectly - not just once, but multiple times. Then, incrementally increase the speed or “pick it up”: the best way to get faster without sacrificing accuracy. Use Better Practice's tools to help you with picking up the speed!
First up is the built-in metronome. Let’s say you’re learning a new rhythm. Use the Better Practice metronome to pick a good starting tempo. Once you’ve can play it perfectly at a tempo, use the shortcuts to jump up by 10 bpm (or just increase a few bpm at a time). You'll usually need a couple of takes to find your starting point but once you do, play it at this speed a few more times to train your muscles. Once you feel you've internalized the rhythm, you'll realize that you can pick it up rather quickly. Before you know it you will be playing at normal speed. See how you can also turn this process into a game.
If you have backing tracks, Better Practice allows you to Pick It Up Quick too. Slow the tracks down and incrementally speed it up without changing the pitch.
Playing along with videos? Attach ‘em right to the assignment alongside all the other tools. If you’re linking from YouTube, you can change the speed on their player also.