Hope everyone is having a good year so far!

It’s all hands-on deck here currently with tour prep, which has involved a lot of refining and tweaking of my practice routine (sometimes too much), so I thought I’d share my thoughts and the current state of my routine in case that helps you at all. As always, I’m available in person in Salford/Manchester if you want a drum teacher to discuss any of this with (or anything else drum related).

To begin with I usually ask myself some questions along these lines, and then work it out from there:

• What do I need/want to learn that is a new skill?
• What can I already do that would benefit from improvement?
• What do I enjoy creatively?

As it stands the new skill that I’m working on is ankle control when playing double bass to really try and nail the faster double bass parts that are required for the ESB set. This is my main focus however I feel like my timing could always be improved, so I’ve mixed various timing exercises (e.g. playing in front, on top of and behind the click, and experimenting with basic metric modulations) in with my double bass routine to give my legs a rest and keep working on something useful. This takes up roughly half my routine, with the second half of the routine usually involving some improvisation and playing along with songs, which is the creative side of the practice routine. Playing the drums and jamming along with songs can be an underrated part of practice and is really helpful to embed any techniques you’ve worked on in the other sections of your routine, so I’d recommend a roughly 50/50 mix between practice new things and just playing to blow off some cobwebs and really ingrain any techniques you’ve already worked on.

Hope that helps and if you’re in Manchester or Salford and want a drum teacher please let me know!

Tom