For this month’s article, I’d like to discuss the concept of practicing creatively or “outside of the box”. I’ll agree there’s certainly nothing wrong with playing through a drum method book as written. However, I’ve discovered that there are many benefits to thinking beyond what’s notated on the page. When I first started taking lessons, I was fortunate enough to have a teacher that would instill this philosophy in my daily practice routine. I’m very grateful for this and continue to carry this knowledge with me to this day. I can remember starting off a lesson by reading a march exercise from a book. But instead of using a metronome, we played along to a song by the group Yes. This was a real eye opener for how those subdivisions fit inside of the music. It was also a challenge to not get distracted by the music while playing the […]

October 2022 Issue