Today I’m going to give you 5 tips for playing along with songs on the drums.
The first thing I think you need to understand is that playing with pre-recorded tracks is simply difficult at first. As a matter of fact, I had to do quite a bit of this at the military school of music when I was in the Army band. At that point in time, I had been playing the drums professionally for several years. And even so, I remember that playing with recorded tracks was difficult for me and it took awhile to get the hang of it.
Here Are 5 Steps To Mastering This Skill
1. First practice playing with a metronome. The recorded track time is very rigid. So unless your time is very good it will be difficult to play with pre-recorded tracks. You want to be very comfortable with the metronome before you even attempt to play a song with a recording.
2. Learn to play the basic beat for a really simple song along with a metronome. A good song to start with is “Beverly Hills” by Weezer. The basic beat is very simple and the song is rather slow. Leave out all fills for now. Just play the basic beat.
3. Play the basic beat you learned along with the recording. Again, leave out all the fills. Just get comfortable playing the beat with the song.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with other songs. Find songs that aren’t too fast at first Learn to play the basic beat along with a metronome, then with the recording. Focus on relaxing and trying to achieve a good feel even if you aren’t playing exactly what the drummer is on the recording. You’re really trying to just get comfortable with the type of beat he’s playing, and comfortable playing along with the recording. As your ability increases, try more difficult songs, faster songs, etc. If you’re having trouble keeping up with a faster song, try to figure out why. Is it just because you aren’t comfortable with that particular beat at that tempo? Or is there a specific technique you need to develop further? You may need to develop your stick control some more, or maybe your bass drum technique. If you need to develop your stick control some more to be able to play faster and keep up, my course, “Killer Stick Control In 30 Minutes A Day,” will really help you with that.
5. After you’re comfortable playing beats along with recordings learn to add fills. You may find it easier to simply improvise fills at first, Just play whatever ideas come out. Regardless, this is a good way to practice because this is usually the way you will actually play with a band. Your fills will probably improvised in many or most situations.
But it’s also good to learn some songs note for note from a transcription. That’s one of the ways to expand your technical ability on the instrument as well as your vocabulary, your ideas on the instrument. When you’re learning to play a transcription turn off the music in the beginning. Practice the written transcription along with a metronome first. Slow it down as much as you need to to learn to play it. Then gradually speed it up. Depending on how difficult it is you may need to isolate certain sections. Look at the whole transcription as one big exercise. So for instance you may practice a 2 measure section or a 4 measure section over and over so you can master the fills.
After you’ve mastered the transcription and can play along with the metronome play along with the recording. On YouTube settings you can change the play back speed of each video as you watch it. So when you first start playing along to a drum transcription you may need to slow it down at first and gradually speed it up.
One other thing I need to mention is that in order to be able to play along with songs on the drums you need to be able to hear the music clearly. You need headphones that cover or enclose your ears. This will make the drums softer and the music easier to hear. It doesn’t really matter whether the headphones you use are cheap or expensive, but again you want headphones that actually enclose your ears.