What 35 Years of Drum Lessons Taught Me About Learning

Teaching and playing drums has been my livelihood for 35 years. I love it, and I’m grateful every day that I get to do it. Over the years, I have learned a lot; not only about drumming, but also about teaching. In this blog, I’d like to talk about one aspect of my teaching: in order to teach effectively, I first had to figure out how a student learns. This involves working with the student to understand the steps they need to take to learn an assignment and what they should learn from it. The latter is important, which I’ll get back to later. Obviously, first we have to learn an assignment. 

Take a basic drumming technical exercise, like a paradiddle. For anyone unfamiliar, the paradiddle is one of the basic 26 rudiments for drummers. Rudiments are exercises drummers use to help strengthen, maintain, and develop technique, similar to jogging for a basketball player. Most people can probably play the paradiddle, especially if they're playing it with their hands rather than drumsticks. As a teacher, my job is to find an efficient way for each student to learn the paradiddle. This may sound silly, but as someone who has taught a paradiddle thousands of times, I can assure you it is not.

A paradiddle is a sticking or an order of hands played at a constant tempo. The sticking is: Right, Left, Right, Right, Left, Right, Left, Left. For now, I’m leaving accents out. You might think that means we’re done, but we’re not, because just understanding the sticking is not the point of the assignment. The challenge, or exercise, is playing the paradiddle at an even tempo without stopping for an extended period of time. I wouldn’t expect a drum student to be able to do that initially, so during this lesson, I would need to explain how to practice it correctly so the student can eventually play an in-tempo and even paradiddle. 

This is where I have to figure out how each student learns. There are three senses I ask my drum students to use: eyes, ears, and touch. Every student uses a different combination. Some rely heavily on one sense, while others use two or three. Here are some examples of different ways I would help a drum student learn the paradiddle. For a visual learner, I may write out the sticking and have them play while looking at it until the pattern becomes familiar. For a drum student who learns audibly, I may explain that paradiddle actually describes the sticking: para meaning two single hits (Right, Left) and diddle meaning one double (Right, Right). If the student says “paradiddle” while they're playing, they can hear the pattern of the sticking. If I have a drum student who’s good at using both visual and auditory senses, I may have them both look at the sticking and say the word aloud as they play. There is still the sense of touch, which is when I will explain how the drumstick should feel. For example, where it touches their fingers, how it should feel the same in both hands, how the vibration should feel when the stick hits the drum, and how the rebound should feel afterwards. A student who learns how a drum stick should feel while they are holding sticks correctly should be able to recognize when something is off and correct it. 

This may all sound overcomplicated, but most of the time, the student is unaware that I’m figuring out their learning style. From the moment a student tries to read a paradiddle, I start observing and adjusting. This whole process happens quickly, and once I know a student, I can go straight to what works best for them. 

Earlier, I mentioned that it is important for students to know what they are learning from an assignment. If they think the goal of practicing a paradiddle is simply to learn a paradiddle, they’re missing the point. A paradiddle, like all drum rudiments, is used to develop technique. Further, a paradiddle develops single and doubles, two techniques you cannot play drums without. So what the student is learning from this assignment is a way to develop doubles and singles. When a student understands that, the exercise becomes a tool for improvement, not just a task to complete.

This all matters because I have had students who focus on how many assignments they can “pass.” These students usually improve more slowly than students who focus on what they are actually learning because they only practice enough to move on. They aren’t absorbing what the exercise is meant to teach. They don’t learn as much and therefore don’t improve as much. 

However, a student who understands what they're supposed to learn from an assignment can set goals to improve that aspect of their playing. For example, this student uses a book, song, or rudiment to work on improving their drumming. So those things become more of a tool to fix or learn something rather than an object that they have to pass. Their goal is to improve their playing. When I assign something, it's never random. Each assignment is chosen to work on a specific part of the student’s technique. The goal shouldn’t be to pass it quickly but to learn what it’s there to teach.