how to practise drums without annoying everyone

Drums are the instrument most likely to be practised badly, for an obvious reason: the fun part is loud, immediate and requires no preparation. A student can sit down, play the groove they already own for twenty minutes, and feel like they have worked. Nothing improved.

The work that actually moves a drummer forward is quieter than that, and most of it happens on an eight-inch rubber pad.

the pad does most of the job

Hand technique, stick control, timing and reading can all be developed on a pad with headphones on, at eleven at night, in a bedroom, without a single complaint from anyone. That means practice stops depending on whether the house is empty.

Start every session with singles at a tempo that feels almost insultingly slow, watching the stick height rather than listening for speed. Then doubles, which will be uneven for months and are meant to be. Then whichever rudiment your teacher has you on, usually paradiddles early and then single and double strokes in combination.

Keep the sticks low. A beginner's instinct is to lift high and hit hard, which builds a stroke that cannot be played fast and cannot be played quietly. Low and relaxed first, loud later.

the click, and how to stop resenting it

A metronome feels like an accusation at first. The trick is to set it slower than you want. If the groove falls apart at ninety, practise it at sixty-five until it is boring, then move in steps of five.

Two things make the click much easier to live with. The first is counting out loud — actually out loud, not in your head. Say "one and two and three and four and" while you play and the subdivision stops being abstract. The second is putting the click on the quarter note and your hands on something faster, so you can hear exactly where you are early or late.

Students who can hold a tempo are the ones who get asked to play in bands. It is the single most valuable thing a drummer owns.

add limbs one at a time

Independence problems are almost always a sequencing problem. Instead of attempting a full groove with a tricky kick pattern, play the hi-hat and snare until it runs without thought, then add the kick. If it collapses, drop back to two limbs and slow down.

The hi-hat foot is the limb students forget. Tapping it on beats two and four while the hands do something unrelated is uncomfortable for a week and then permanently useful, because it anchors the pulse somewhere other than the hands.

keeping a kit playable at home

An acoustic kit in an apartment is a negotiation. Rubber or mesh practice pads over the heads cut most of the volume, low-volume cymbals cut the rest, and between them a kit becomes something you can play in the early evening. A towel over the snare is the budget version and works better than it sounds.

An electronic kit with headphones solves the noise problem entirely and brings its own: the pads bounce differently and the cymbals do not behave like metal. If you practise on one, use your lesson time on the acoustic kit to recalibrate how hard you are actually hitting.

No kit at home at all is not a disaster. A pad, a pillow for the kick foot and a pair of sticks will carry a student a long way, and the first lesson back on a real kit tends to reveal that the hands got better anyway.

your ears lie while you play

Put a phone on the other side of the room and play a minute of the piece. Drummers almost never hear their own rushing while they are playing, and almost always hear it on playback. Listen for whether the fills land back on beat one, and whether the snare sits where the click sits.

Bring that recording to your drum lesson. It is a faster way into a useful conversation than describing what you think went wrong. If you are working towards an RSL grade, the backing tracks for your pieces are the best play-along material you have, and what an rsl grade exam is made of explains how the drum exam is put together.