What's the right tempo for practicing? Check out these tips!

The right tempo is the one which is slow enough for you to be able to play, but at the same time fast enough to be challenging. Right there in that sweet-spot is where you'll see progress without having to go through a painful, boring or frustrating practice session. Let me explain...

This is really important! The tempo we chose to start practicing something on the drums or a practice pad could be the most determining factor between having a great, productive and satisfactory hour of practice or going through 15 minutes of frustration followed by 45 minutes of "playing anything else" randomly on the drums. I'm not saying 45 minutes of random playing is bad, in fact it's ok and that's how we find some interesting new ideas that we can add to our own "toolbox". However, it's important to differentiate those moments of free-playing from our practice sessions if we want to get the most out of the time we invest sitting on the drumset, otherwise a couple of hours go by and we find ourselves stuck playing always the same ideas. That's what I want you to avoid by sharing some tips today...

The right tempo to start.

In general, it's a good idea to start practicing anything new in a really slow tempo like 50 bpm, but if you are not able to play comfortably in that tempo don't force yourself to do it, just turn off the metronome and practice note by note super slow - and whe I say super slow I mean suuuuuuper slow!!, it doesn't matter the actual tempo, don't even think about that, just play fluently note by note -, then start counting the quarter note on top of that to give yourself a time reference and start to increase the speed GRADUALLY until you get somewhere near that 50 bpm mark. Just then you turn the metronome back on and start building from there. The key word is patience!

How much should you increase the tempo?

Dave Weckl recommends using random metronome marks, for example: 49, 54, 58, 65, etc. and changing them by one or two bpm every practice session. This is for your body to get used playing in different tempos so you don't end up unintentionally dragging or rushing everything in between to those rounded metronome marks like 50, 55, 60, etc.

I've recommended in previous posts to increase the tempo by 5 bpm every time and that's the way I used to practice before, but personally I don't do that anymore because I think Dave's idea makes more sense.

When should you increase the tempo?

Only when you are able to!!. To avoid frustrations only increase the speed when you are ready, know and understand your limits and most of all be patient!. Working enough in one level is going to help you feel comfortable on the next level and really make progress in the long term. And here is today's catchy phrase: Don't try to run if you can't walk yet -I know, buuuu, but it's true!-.

What I look at to know wether I'm ready or not to move on to the next level is based on a Victor Wooten's idea and that is: "Being able to play something doesn't mean you learned it already, when you are able to play it without making mistakes that's when you know you've learned it", and the only way for you to know if you are able to NOT make mistakes is by repeating something a lot, I like to repeat any exercise until I can play it AT LEAST four times in a row making no mistakes at all while counting out loud different subdivisions. That's what I call "The four repetition scheme" in my book "Sightreading for drummers" (which is being translated to english at this moment) and it's the key of my method, but I apply it everywhere, every time I want to master something.

How much should I speed the tempo?

Don't compare with anyone else but yourself! Set your goals based on the drummer you want to become and work consistently to achieve those goals. Overcoming yourself while going after your own goals makes much more sense that trying to be better than someone else at something not even knowing why or what for.

An alternative to the painful metronome

Before I just couldn't take an hour or 40 minutes or even 30 minutes sitting with only my practice pad and a metronome to work on my technique; I could do it for one day, two, three days top, but I could never sustain that consistently as a routine, it was way too boring. But then on the first Covid-19 quarantine period I found out that practicing over a music album instead of a metronome I could spend an hour (or a full album) and after that I'd still feel like hitting that practice pad. What I recommend you to do is to play your favorite album and use that as a metronome while you play different subdivisions on the practice pad and identify your...

THREE LEVELS OF COMFORT

Level 1 is total comfort, it's that subdivision you are completely comfortable playing, it doesn't require any focus and you will even get bored if you spend much time there. Level 2 is exploration, I mean, you are not so comfortable but you can still hold on and play that subdivision for a whole song if you focus (here's where results come from). And level 3 is the unknown, it's the subdivision you are not ready to play yet at that specific tempo, there's where you are going to spend only 5 to 10% of your practice time; there's really no point in staying for any longer in that level.

Now, the subdivision that today represents level 2 for you is going to become level 1 after a couple of weeks practicing, and what it was your level 3 is going to become your new level 2. That's why you don't have to associate a level to any specific subdivision, but to the level of comfort you feel when you play. It's good to use the same album for a while so you can use the songs as a reference to track your progress.

Conclusion

The key is to find the right way of practicing for you, so you feel like practicing everyday and you can enjoy the process! If you think practicing with just a metronome and a practice pad is fun that's great! there is nothing to change then. That last tip is for you only if you find that tedious, annoying and boring like I did.

After I found that way of making my technique workout fun by using music instead of a click, I translated that to a regular practice routine with just a metronome where "Level 2" is the same thing than that sweet-spot I mentioned at the beginning of this post: Slow enough so you can play, but fast enough so it's challenging". There's where you'll find results.

See you next time!

“Repetition is the key to real learning”.