If your playing is not perfect.....
Strategy 1 - Play slower
Strategy 2 - Say aloud what you want to play

It doesn't matter which strategy you try first.  If the first one doesn't work, try adding the second one.  If you are still making mistakes try playing even slower until you can do it without mistakes.

If you are playing along with a song and you can't play it perfectly it is usually because it is too fast, so strategy number one - slow it down.  Usually we need to use speeds of between 70%-100%.  YouTube allows us to play the video at 75% but we then also need the in between speeds to gradually increase the speed of our playing until we have reached our goal of 100%.


Once you have the mp3 file  you can use windows media player or
Music Speed Changer to play at whatever speed you need to be able to achieve a good solid performance.  From there you can gradually speed the song up until you can play it at full speed.
Music Speed changer can be downloaded as an app on your phone or tablet and can also be used on you computer.

Happy Practicing

In these videos Rick demonstrates and gives some background to all 10 of the funk solo from Rick Latham's Advanced Funk Studies book.  He plays with a fantastic Feel and sound that inspires me to get practicing and lift my game!

The first video helps to set the scene, and in the subsequence videos he delves into the thing that it takes to make each solo sound great.

.Drumeo have a made some great videos about various drum and cymbal makers.
Here are a few that you may find interesting and enjoy.

Thought that a paradiddle was just an exercise that we learn when we start learning drums?  Think again.....

Here is a fantastic breakdown of the skills that we can use to add complexity to any music that we play. 

Here is a great series by the great Peter Erskine explaining the basics of playing with brushes

Found these videos today.  A pretty good introduction to reggae playing

here is the latest instalment in this fantastic series. put together by drumeo.  Check out their youtube home page other inspiring drumming videos.

What a great drummer Gregg is with a fantastic knowledge and  perspective of some of the best drumming of the last 50 years