What are some of your favorite ways to practice?
One of my favorite things to do in my practice sessions is to play-along with music. Sometimes that means recordings of songs that I know the parts to note for note, but I also enjoy playing to play-along tracks that don’t have any drums. It gives me the opportunity and challenges me to create an original, meaningful part to fill in a musical void that is asking to be filled, and the best part is, I can loop it in my DAW and try as many different ideas as I want. Sometimes I focus on developing a couple of particular ideas until I feel like it’s cohesive, or I just whatever strikes me each time it restarts, and sometimes I just improvise wildly, to get some energy out. This go around was an exercise in just putting something down after just a couple of quick listen throughs, and not overthinking it, which I personally find to be the biggest challenge most of the time.
This practice track was created by one of the most amazingly talented musicians that I have the privilege of calling friend, @tjhartmanndrums. Check out his killer drumming and sick as heck videos.