Practice! We are talking about practice!Allen Iverson
If you’re a sports fan, especially a basketball fan, then you may remember Allen Iverson’s famous rant about practice at a news conference in 2002. That’s where the first words of this paragraph come from. When it comes to drumming or any other instrument, your ability to play freely comes from a lot of practice. Your ability to access a huge vocabulary of grooves, fills, breaks, odd times, or anything else comes from a lot of practice. As drummers, we have so much going against us when it comes to volume, and sometimes we have to find other ways to get our practice in. The good ole practice pad should be a piece of gear every drummer owns and loves. Are they glamorous? No, but they serve a major purpose. If you use the practice pad correctly, then you can take your drumming to places it has never been. That little round pad (and these days full practice-pad kits) can help you hone the specifics that will make a huge difference in your playing. There are many choices for pads these days with different feels, sizes, and even sounds. Here are just a few examples of practice pads to check out.
The Evans RealFeel Pad gives you two different playing surfaces: one that feels more natural, like a drum, and one that is hard to give you more of a workout.
The 8″ and 10″ Remo Practice Pads are proven workhorses. They have been around for many years because they do the job. The sound these pads make is very precise, and you can hear the loud and soft hits clearly, which is great when working on technique.
Prologix makes many pads with all sorts of different feels. With all the available choices, you can find your exact fit. I enjoy the Blue Lightning pad because it has a heavy feel and really gives my hands and arms a good workout.
The Ahead Wicked Chops pad has a tiny 1.5″ gum-rubber playing surface that attaches to any standard 8mm cymbal stand. What would practicing on such a tiny pad do for you? It can help build your consistency and accuracy. If you look at the marks a drumstick makes on the head of a drum played by a seasoned professional as opposed to a new player, then you can tell instantly how consistent they are because the center of the head will have all the marks and, especially for tom toms, is where all the tone is.
The final product to consider is a full practice-pad kit. DW’s Practice Pad Kit comes with four round pads and a rectangular pad that is wide enough for the two beaters of a double-kick pedal. These kits are great to have at home but even better to have at gigs to warm up on before a performance.
I can’t emphasize enough how important practice is to your playing. You should love to practice. If you put in the time, then it will pay huge dividends when you hit the stage or studio.
