At some point in every drummer’s development, they realize that a bad habit could be getting in the way of improving. To find out what drummers have been up against, I asked the Facebook group Art of Drumming about bad habits. What I found was a list of what drummers have to overcome to be good.
Drummers who excel beyond the norm work on technique, musicality, practice routine, develop specific abilities, groove studies, and professionalism. Mastery in these areas are the barriers to entry into the world of being a good drummer.
The following article expands upon these issues based on the specific bad habits shared by the Facebook group members. Out of 165 comments, 40 specific issues are included below, which are organized into seven categories.
Professionalism
The first of these habits is found in every industry. Good drummers add plenty of value to any situation, so they don’t need to accept less than what they deserve. The problem is that they don’t always know their true value. My mentors helped me with this issue.
The next four habits are all related and may seem redundant. Although the differences are nuanced and contextual, I kept them separate because they are so common among drummers who could be good (professional) yet haven’t developed enough self control.
1. Undercutting Gigs
This is an issue that’s relative to the market. Musicians in one area may expect $100 or $150 for a 2- to 4- hour gig, for example. The undercutting happens when musicians, not just drummers, accept too many gigs below the accepted average.
The problem is always opportunity. Clubs and parties start to pay less because bands and musicians will accept less. The club sees the opportunity to save, and the musicians see an opportunity to work. What clubs and musicians don’t understand is the simple fact that when you give less value, you typically get less value.
Bottomline: Drummers (and all musicians) need to ask for more and say no to gigs that are below the market’s acceptable average. When someone asks “how much,” that’s an opportunity to ask them about their budget – “What’s your budget?” Then, go from there.
2. Playing while guitars are tuning or talking
I was guilty of this growing up in my brother’s band. They were all five years older than me and treated me like the little brother (because I was), so being told to shut the … up was normal. I eventually felt enough of the brutally honest requests to stop playing and made it a priority to be respectful.
This kind of maturity comes with experience. Once the novelty of hitting drums wears off, some players begin to enter the world of making music with other musicians, which is super amazing. The experience of making good sounds on the drums and music with other players becomes the priority over satisfying your own uncontrollable urges.
3. Noodling between songs
Isn’t this the same as playing while people are talking or tuning? Sometimes it is, so let’s dig deeper into the context and talk about appropriate behaviors during rehearsal and practice sessions
A rehearsal is not time to learn parts or jam on your instrument. The most professional drummers understand and respect this norm.
Excessive noodling could be a result of players not practicing enough or practicing with the right routines. Work noodling into daily practice, along with learning your parts for rehearsal.
4. Drumming on tables
Although the Facebook group considered this a bad habit, good drummers are often compelled to drummer anywhere and everywhere. I can still hear my teachers yelling at me to quit tapping on the desk — my wife is annoyed from time to time, too.
Maybe this issue has more to do with how much good drummers play their instrument and therefore don’t need to drum during a meal or a meeting. Like noodling or playing people are talking, tapping can be a huge distraction to others, which is not becoming of a good drummer who will experience lots of success playing with many musicians.
5. Grinding teeth to music
This sounds like an anxious habit and definitely follows the pattern of the previous three bad habits. It definitely seems unhealthy and a product of a lack of regular time on your instrument.
Can you be a good drummer and grind your teeth to the music? Sure, but it’s also indicative of a drummer who needs to develop their internal metronome.
Tapping your foot, like grinding teeth to music, is an external time-keeping strategy. It’s great for beginners or for learning parts.
Good drummers can internalize the time and it shows in their playing. Try some of these metronome exercises, like the “Metronome Relay,”
6. Being lazy about gear – not setting it up to practice between gigs
We get busy, lazy, or whatever you want to call it. After the gig is not the favorite time to be setting up drums for the next practice session. But this is something that good drummers do all the time — make sure they can play everyday possible, especially in between gigs or rehearsals.
I have three drum sets and just as many hardware and cymbal setups. Along with needing different gear for different gigs, I like to have a kit set up at all times. This way, I don’t fall into the rabbit hole of laziness that gets in the way of progress.
Even when I was a broke college student, Craigslist had plenty of $175 drum kits that I could buy and leave in rehearsal spaces. At one point, I had three kits at home and three around town for rehearsals.
My laziness was apparent to me, so I saved money and used it wisely to facilitate practice in between gigs (and my laziness). … “lazy” is a bit harsh, though.
7. Not learning the tune well
Learning the song is everything for a gig. Good drummers learn songs for a gig without rehearsing them. They play the songs well enough to be supportive of the other players, even though there’s usually limited time.
Check out this video on how to learn songs fast. It’s all about my process for last-minute gigs and how to decide what to play when your time for learning is severely limited.
8. Not engaging the crowd – “Peart syndrome”
Neil Peart looks like he’s focusing laser eyes at a target. It looks weird, but it;s Neil Peart. He can have whatever stage presence he wants — glaring off into an audience he does not see has worked for him.
Good drummers are often engaging. I love watching a drummer interact with other musicians in the band because it signals to me that they are connecting and creating in the moment. Isn’t that the point of live performances?
To break the bad habit of looking in an awkward direction with no connection to the audience, I practiced looking around the room of my basement. Most of this was actually because I needed to be able to communicate with band members, which, as I mentioned above, still works great for engaging with the crowd.
Technique
Practicing form and rudiments isn’t fun in the beginning when you’re probably not sounding too cool on the instrument. But drumming is something that relies heavily on motion — even more so than the instrument or tuning — to sound good.
The motion is all about technique, and it’s full of bad habits that drummers need to overcome to become good.
9. Poor Posture
Sound relies on movement, and movement relies on your body. It needs to be in good shape, and your core must be effective when it comes to maintaining and anchor or balance.
Sloughing or playing hunched over is the worst thing you can do for your body. A lot of good players find a way to make it work, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to help you max out your potential on the drums.
It’s often the seat height and an awareness of your posture that make the biggest difference. Don’t sit too low or too high. Keep your hip joints slightly above your knees. This height seems to work for most body shapes and sizes.
Your setup could also be an issue. Check out this article on setting up drums because it has a few specific tips and rationales for placing instruments a certain way to support your playing.
10. Over-gripping the sticks
When it comes to technique, gripping the stick is as fundamental is it gets. If you’re holding it too tightly or have too much hand contact with the stick, your sound will be choked off and movement will be limited.
If the stick is gripped properly, the stick will vibrate in an almost unnoticeable way when it comes in contact with a drum or cymbal. The vibration adds to the excitement of the instrument. It will make a cymbal or drum sing that much more, affecting the tone and sound quality.
You may find that great drummers use different grips and techniques, but almost all of them started with one grip to develop their hands. Whether it’s French, German, American, or traditional grip, how much of a hold you have on the stick will matter significantly.
I recommend developing a grip that allows the fulcrum to hold the stick, and let the rest of the fingers control the rebound (see “Poor Stroke Technique” below).
Listen to the sound of your ride cymbal, for example, with a tight grip versus a grip that holds the stick more loosely. Once you hear what a difference it makes, you may be more motivated to work on this technique issue.
11. Not practicing enough to fix the weak hand
The weak hand is not fun. It’s a bad habit that a lot of drummers don’t want to address. It takes work, but it also takes knowledge and motivation to eliminate this habit.
My answer to this issue is simple. Start your exercises with the weak hand. If you always start with your right, start with your left. This will train your brain to focus on the weak hand and give it better reaction time and coordinate the hand to feel what it takes to play proper stick heights.
You can also play left hand on the hi-hat (if you normally play with your right). Take a book with reading exercises, like Syncopation, and play a simple rock pattern on the hi-hat and snare drum while reading the exercise on the kick drum.
For more ideas on how to use method books, check out this article on 11 Method Books Every Drummer Should Own.
12. Poor stroke technique
Drumming can be broken down into two types of strokes — rebound and controlled. A drummer with poor stroke technique likely does not define these strokes properly when playing rudiments or basic grooves on drum set.
The rebound stroke allows the stick to bounce back after striking the surface of the instrument. By letting the stick return to the prep stroke position, energy is conserved and you can play much faster and with less stress on your muscles.
Controlled strokes are about stopping the stick from rebounding. Although it takes lots of control over the drumstick to play any type of stroke, the term “controlled” in this case refers to controlling the rebound.
It’s important to develop good controlled strokes because they help you define your accents in relation to unaccented strokes of a different stick height. This is where the definition really becomes apparent in a drummer’s playing — the contrast between accented and unaccented strokes.
This article has exercises for developing rebound and controlled strokes, as well as the basic rudiments that comprise almost all of the other rudiments.
13. Poor breathing
It’s a weird thing to forget to breathe. But I’ll be honest. It’s something that I have to do deliberately.
Singing musical phrases that you’re playing with can help maintain a steady inhale and exhale because you’ll need the air to sing. This strategy also helps to train your brain to breathe when it’s concentrating on playing a groove, fills, solo, or whatever.
When I feel myself not breathing enough, I usually speed up the tempo or get anxious in a subtle way. To overcome the effects of not breathing well, I try to take breaths and release them slowly with the timing of the groove. This usually pulls back the reins a bit.
14. Tensing up when playing faster
The only way to play faster is to relax more. This bad habit of tensing up is a tough one to overcome because it takes years of consistent practice to play fast and maintain a relaxed state. And that’s only if you have good grip, technique, exercise, and strategies to develop your hands.
Beyond the issue of grip and technique, it’s important to mention that meditation and connecting your active thoughts to your relaxing are important.
Consider the following when practicing for speed.
- Clear your mind and only let in the focus on your hands.
- Feel your forearms turn to jelly as the relax more through the tough moments.
- There’s no pain because you are releasing the tension before the pain could set in.
- Take your focus to a place that can exist without thinking through these issues.
This may all seem strange, but it’s what works for me. The best part is that it will rewire your cerebellum to alleviate ADHD and other neurological issues that impede your performance.
15. Angle of the drums – snare / toms
Setting up your drums to support healthy ergonomics is key to being a good drummer. The bad habit of angling the drums one way or another too much is based on preference of a certain look or just not knowing any better.
If you watch great drummers, they place their drums and cymbals such that movement from one instrument to the next is easy and makes sense with how the body moves.
The snare drum height is the first drum that I set for height and angle. I keep it angled slightly toward me, but it’s almost unnoticeable. From the snare drum position, I try to keep the toms and ride cymbal within reach without needing to move my arm much to reach them.
16. Poor fulcrum
As mentioned a few times earlier in this article, grip is very important, so I’m on board with poor fulcrums being a bad habit. I’m not sure, however, if holding the stick way at the back is a bad habit or something that good drummers don’t do.
The fulcrum is where your thumb and index finger (or middle finger) pinch the stick about a third of the way up the shaft from the butt. That’s it. Developing your muscles with this fulcrum will lead to success sooner than otherwise, but it’s not the only way. It’s the way I know works for beginners (or any level).
Tony Williams explains that holding the stick toward the back is where he gets more control and power. You’ll see a lot of good drummers using this grip once you’re looking for it.
I’m not totally on board with the fulcrum at the back of the stick, but I’m keeping an open mind and try it here and there. But I don’t recommend this grip for beginners.
Musicality
This is the most important issue on this list. Musicality is what makes a drummer good or bad. If what you produce on the instrument sounds good, it is musical. It doesn’t really matter as much about how the sound is made.
The following issues come from the context of the music produced and other issues like how well the drumming supports music from other players.
17. Not listening
Drummers who don’t listen to what other musicians are playing tend to have a hard time locking in a groove. It goes beyond that with improvisation because what comes out doesn’t always fit dynamically, rhythmically, or the song arrangement.
This bad habit has more to do with a lack of experience to the point that the drummer hasn’t really settled into the role of the instrument in a group setting. In other words, good drummers know to get their licks out on their time, allowing rehearsal or performance with a group to be about making music that complements the other players.
18. Filling too much (i.e., every four measures)
Fills are fun. I still catch myself playing too many fills when I first learn a song, especially if I’m enjoying the groove or the tune. Since I record a lot, it’s usually obvious when there are too many fills, but it’s as simple as doing another take.
Good drummers understand that filling in is supposed to be done with a purpose. It could be that the fill sets up an ensemble figure, fills in between hits in a stop time, or it’s just a phrase marker.
This article dives deeper into drum fills and what makes a drum fill good. It includes examples and exercises to help drummers develop their drum fills and how to think about them.
19. Playing too loudly – attention to dynamics
Good drummers have control over their dynamics, both in relation to the other instruments in a group and within their set of instruments. It’s tough to achieve a balance, but their are a few simple things that help develop an attention to dynamics.
Playing the cymbals too loud is very common among bad drummers. It’s often because they haven’t really thought about it much or no has told them that it’s not cool or that it sounds bad.
Let’s throw one more instrument into this issue — cowbell. This is a penetrating sound, and we don’t need more of it. That’s the joke, right? It’s such an effective timbre that more is not better.
I always take it back to recording yourself playing because you’ll hear what others hear. Although mic placement and recording quality will add some distortion to what’s actually happening, it will still reveal an imbalance in a drummer’s playing.
Here’s a few tips to help kick this bad habit.
- Try playing the drums louder than the cymbals.
- Play the hi-hats or ride pattern quieter without losing intensity.
- Focus on listening to other instrument like the bass. Can you hear it blend with your kick drum?
- Explore a broader dynamic range on drums and cymbals.
Check out these articles for cymbal techniques and different sounds you can make. This will help with attention to dynamics by providing more timbres for contrast between accented and unaccented notes.
20. Playing to impress
This is bad, I know. But isn’t it fun? Sick beats and fills are what inspires a lot of drummers to keep playing.
In the context of a group setting with the goal of making music that isn’t necessarily centered around the drum set, showing off is a bad habit that good drummers don’t exhibit.
It may be that experience and true love for music brings drummers away from these urges. I like to ask myself, “What’s the best way to serve the music?” A lot of times, this means not playing what comes to mind and focusing on listening and letting the ideas flow.
21. Rushing when the music gets exciting
It’s tough to play with intensity at lower dynamics. Likewise, it can be hard to maintain a consistent tempo when the song gets more exciting — rhythmically or dynamically, for example.
Rushing is a bad habit that drummers must break to be good. Here’s an article on ways to use a metronome. Check out the last one on the list. It’s called the Metronome Relay, and it is the fastest way to improve your time.
22. Repeating fills – realizing this on playback
This issue is very similar to filling too much because it’s a bad habit that ruins any chance of a good drum fill sounding interesting. Maybe the fill that’s being repeated is good. After playing it too often, it will be predictable and boring.
Sometimes good drummers make this mistake because they are caught up in the moment and weren’t keeping track of their fills. On playback, as the Facebook group member added, it becomes obvious. This is not a major problem. Just track the parts again.
Consider approaching drums as mentioned in the habit (above) about playing fills too often. Train your brain to be deliberate about the musicality of your fills, no matter how big or small it may be.
23. Too “technique heavy”
The fine line between amazing technique and chops displays is a rough place to live as a musician. Most people appreciate great hands and command over rhythm as long as it’s in good taste.
Bad drummers can have great chops and technique. The question here is about how musical their performance may or may not be.
I’ll admit that I’m sometimes afraid to play fills or solos with too much chops display for fear of messing up the groove or ruining the musical moment.
But it all comes down to the style of music. If you’re playing a lot of modern jazz or fusion with funky styles, gospel chops can sound very musical.
24. Impatiently delivering a setup fill
It’s hard not rush through fills period. It’s especially hard to be patient when setting up something big and exposed.
Who hasn’t heard Phil Collins’s fill on “In the Air Tonight”? It’s epic. And he waits. It’s patience.
Besides listening to great setup fills, I suggest practicing with a metronome and focusing on not rushing through fills. Remember to breathe because it helps with the excitement and adds to your brain power for making musical choices.
25. Only respecting one genre
I haven’t met too many drummers with this bad habit, but it’s certainly annoying when it happens. Good drummers are good musicians, and good musicians can recognize good music in any genre.
Perhaps this habit is more about mindset or maturity than anything else. It also seems like the person who submitted this bad habit wished a drummer would explore more music or keep an open mind to new ideas outside the style or genre they were playing.
Listen to everything, and put music into two categories: stuff you like and stuff you don’t like. Who cares if it’s norteño, death metal, or bebop jazz. You can learn something from any genre.
Communication
Musicians need to be able to communicate in many ways and for a variety of reasons. Beyond the talk and phones it takes to get the gig or organize a rehearsal, drummers need to communicate in the moment while playing music and be able to accept critique.
26. Unreceptive to criticism
Criticism is not easy to hear. I don’t care how much experience you have, it’s never fun to hear someone talk about the bad aspects of your playing.
Sometimes the difference between a good drummer and a bad one is how they take the criticism. A good drummer can acknowledge the issue and think about ways to work on it if the criticism is fair. Sometimes the one giving the critique isn’t knowledgeable enough to such comments or specific enough to be helpful.
constructive criticism is hard for you to handle, consider setting measurable practice goals. For example, if you want to increase your crops for single-stroke rolls, set a metronome marking and time duration with a goal that’s attainable within a certain period of time.
This process of setting goals, working toward them, and evaluating your progress will help make someone’s comment easier to handle and in a much healthier way.
27. Not looking in the right direction
You know the scene. Guitar players are giving strong looks, trying to get the drummer’s attention. But the drummer with this bad habit is looking down and to the left in his own world.
Making eye contact is as important for transitions in songs as it is for celebrations. It’s a critical part of playing live music with a group of musicians that you respect and enjoy.
It may take practice, but it’s worth it to eliminate this bad habit because it will at some point keep a drummer from becoming good.
Practice Routine
Drummers who want to level up their playing should understand that committing to a practice routine(s) is crucial for success. It’s hard work, takes focus, and requires us to be vulnerable by working on things that may not sound so good, at least initially.
Are you maximize your results? FREE Download.
28. Practicing difficult parts too fast
This is potentially a detrimental bad habit. Some drummers rush through tough rhythms or instrumentation because it seems to sound good in the moment. But it mostly leads to messy grooves, not better playing.
Playing rhythms slowly, to a metronome, can be excruciating. Take advantage of wide space between the notes because it can improve your timing, which is half of the problem. Also, focus on the energy put into each stick height and type of stroke — controlled versus rebound strokes.
If you can’t play it slowly, you can’t play it.
29. Unfocused practice
Practice can be unfocused both in the long and short. Each practice session should be about improving something that supports a more long-term goal that a good drummer may work on for several weeks, months, or years.
On the other hand, it’s also important to plan on some unfocused playing to get out the ideas and urges to play drums and cymbals. Since it’s planned, the practice can still have focus. Just decide ahead of time how much messing around is acceptable before getting down to the business of improving.
30. Expecting results without hard work
I don’t come across this too much because most people know that it takes a lot of work to become a good drummer. Perhaps some people don’t understand how much because their practice hasn’t been consistent enough for a serious amount of time.
This bad habit is something that a bad drummer may never kick. It could be that drummers who expect results without hard work were allowed to treat lots of things that way, most of their lives.
31. Not practicing the things we don’t know
In college, I told a fellow drummer that I sounded terrible in the practice room. He told me that it’s because I’m using my time wisely, practicing the stuff I can’t play.
Maybe drummers who are on the hobbyist level just want to sound good all of the time, and that’s okay. But if you want to be a good drummer, it takes being honest with yourself about what you don’t know how to play and setting goals to get better.
Ability / Skill
This category of habits is more focused on specific abilities or skills. This is where the list gets honest and clear. I’m not sure these issues are habits, more so the result of committing some of the bad habits discussed above.
32. Hi-hat hand-to-foot dexterity
A few exercises and a couple weeks of practice would fix this bad habit for just about any drummer who wants to be good. The habit of not developing your feet to keep up with your hands is one of the worst that a drum set player could have.
If practice is boring with a metronome, playing along to your favorite music. Add quarter notes with your foot on the hi-hat. Then try the upbeat eighth notes. Do this while playing a simple groove with the right hand on the rim or ride.
If you need information on how to set up your hi-hat stand, this article includes the steps and a list of do’s and don’ts.
33. Unable to play with a click
Playing with a click is a matter of practice and training. Bands go into the studio and track an album without preparing the drummer for playing with a click. With digital recording throwing everything on the grid, it’s more cost effective to play to the click.
The hardest part about playing with a click is not over adjust to it when you are off a bit or tugging at the tempo. Adjustments should be made over several bars and feel natural. Almost anyone can learn to play to a click, but making it feel good still takes some natural movement with the time.
If you want to improve your timing fast, check out the Metronome Relay. It’s free!
34. Poor bass drum independence
Bass drum independence was one of the things that took the longest for me to develop. In fact, it’s something, like a lot of these abilities, that you develop forever.
Doing basic grid exercises with the kick drum help to make it comfortable playing the kick on any place in the beat. Try playing all quarter notes on the kick with snare on two and four and eighth notes on the hi-hat or ride. Move the kick to the right one sixteenth note at a time. Play to a metronome and track your tempos and progress.
35. Developing a sense of different meters
I’m going to stick with what Vinnie Colaiuta says about odd meter — think about it in groupings of two and three. Seven is two twos and a three, or a three and two twos. Five is a two and a three.
The trick is to be able to play grooves that feel consistent and not so choppy. Sometimes accenting the groupings of two and three, but that’s easy. Play a groove across the bar in a way that lines up every couple of measures and makes sense with the phrasing of the song.
36. Right hand lead (dominant hand lead)
I always respect a drummer who puts in the time to develop their hands well, especially if they do it with the discipline of drumline. A lot of us went through a rudimentary program of some kind and had to develop even hands.
This habit is fundamentally easy to fix, although it takes some work. Start your exercises with the weak hand. When you lead with your weak hand, it rewires your brain to react with that hand almost as comfortably as with the dominant hand.
Also, try playing your hi-hat with your weak hand, too. A lot of drummers miss this one, and it’s one of the more obvious ways to fix a weak hand. Just because of placement on the kit, I always play my cha cha bell with my left hand.
Groove Studies
The groove is more than the drum beat. It’s how the drum beat fits with the rest of the rhythm players. The way discrepancies develop in a groove becomes the way individuals maintain their character, while how powerful it is when things lock up reinforces the wholeness of the group.
These bad habits are last on the list but should be first on our minds because they touch on the most important aspects of playing music in a group.
37. Forgetting that you’re the time keeper
This habit needs some clarification because I’m not sure if it’s more concerned with keeping steady time or playing a beat that isn’t overcrowded with drum fills.
The first issue is simple to fix, but it takes a lot of work. Try some of the ways to use a metronome explained earlier in this article.
Playing too many fills is also simple to fix. Some of the issue is a lack of taming (not training). Try not hitting the crash cymbal to mark the beginning of every bar or two. Some drummers do this a lot — Dave Grohl on Nevermind and some of Mike Portnoy’s grooves have a lot of crashes every bar.
Restricting your crash cymbal playing with do two things: (1) Make you more aware of what you are playing, and (2) Allow you to incorporate more listening to other instruments as you execute your ideas on the instrument.
38. Taking a groove for granted
It’s hard work to make a groove sound and feel good. Drummers who can do this are not going through the motions. They are actively listening to themselves and the other players to maintain a certain feel or approach to the groove.
Appreciating grooves for how they feel and the rhythms that comprise them is a great place to start. Drummers who take the groove for granted, like it will just be good without much effort, are often lacking experience playing, listening, or both.
39. Avoiding complicated beats
Some songs require the drummer to play something more complicated than usual. Finding a way around playing the more complicated beat is a strange habit and one that I’ve never experienced.
I often see drummers doing the opposite — playing too busy when the song would benefit from a simpler beat.
Listen to Danny Carey of Tool for complicated beats that are not impossible to play. Danny, to me, is like the Joe Morello of progressive hard rock. He’s not Mike Portnoy in the way he fills in so much of the groove with interesting sounds and rhythms. Danny plays exactly what the song needs and always has more to give when necessary.
40. Quarter notes on the kick through fills
If a drummer stomps quarters through every fill and cannot play a fill without relying on the kick for time, it’s a bad habit, for sure. Otherwise, sometimes stomping quarters through the fill fits well with the groove.
Final Thoughts
The bad habit is mostly about the drummer’s awareness of what they’re doing. Focused practice, lessons from someone knowledgeable and capable, and honest reflection and goal setting makes all the difference.