Be Set Up & Ready to Go! Maximise your drum practice - Part 2

I previously talked about the importance of getting yourself all set up ready to go for when you get a chance to practice. It’s all about taking away any deterrents and making things as simple as possible to just sit down and go!

Having things set up ready to go is awesome!

Here are a couple more things that we can set up to get even more out of our practice sessions.

Music/Stand

If you have some exercises or worksheets that you’re going through, have them set up ready to go. Don’t have them tucked away in a folder somewhere. Get them out, visible and with your practice station.

Metronome/Timer

For this one, I’ll bring up my student Tim again who got his dedicated practice pad/stand & sticks set up in his office ready for action. This was working and he was getting in great consistent time practicing.

When listening to one of pieces he was working on, I noticed that there were some sections that were consistently out of time, as the rhythms were out of place. It was obvious that he had been practicing and had a good flow throughout the piece but the timing issue was there.

When I dug deeper into things, it was revealed that Tim wasn’t using his metronome for his practice sessions.

Why? Well this gets up back to being prepared and having no distractions to get started with our practice time.

Tim has a great metronome on his phone and he knows it’s there. But, having to unlock the phone, find the app and then start it up was enough of a pain point that he wasn’t doing it. He knew the benefits, he knew it would only take 30 seconds to get the metronome started, but still it wasn’t happening.

As humans, we can make some pretty good excuses for why we don’t/didn’t do something. It’s too easy to mentally convince ourselves that the time it takes is not worth it.

So, how did we get Tim to use a metronome All the Time!

We knew that having his practice station ready to go was working, we needed to include a metronome with it as although it would only take 30 seconds to get it happening on his phone, he wasn’t doing it.

Most households have an old phone/tablet sitting around so I asked Tim he he had one that was sitting in a drawer not getting used. He said yes, so we delegated it as a dedicated metronome/timer to be permanently at his practice station. It has the notifications turned off so he doesn’t get distracted by messages and other pop ups flashing on the screen.

And…it worked!

He uses the metronome now All the Time when he practices. He also has his Drum Chop Accelerator workout videos Home Page on the device ready to go.

This fixed Tim’s timing issues with the piece, and he’s enjoying how easy it is to get into his practice sessions.

Are you using a metronome or workout video for your practice sessions?

Not everyone has an old phone/tablet lying around, but there are definitely shortcuts that you can set up on your device to have either your metronome or workout video ready to go with a couple of taps.

What else can you think of that would help you get straight into your practice sessions?

Remember,

If you’ve got 10 mins, you can get in a workout!