I learned the hard way that trying to impress other musicians with your playing will get you nowhere. That’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make, and I was making it constantly in high school and even into college.

When playing with other musicians, especially if they were well-experienced pros, my priority was constantly to “show them what I got” and make sure they could tell that I’m a “good drummer.” I felt like I needed to demonstrate at least a little of my technical ability every so often so that they knew I could play more than just groove and time. I needed to throw a 32nd note fill in there so they could see my facility around the kit. Most of all, I needed to look like I was working hard to make these things happen - because I was a “good drummer” with fast hands. Then after the gig I was pretty much just dying for feedback from the guys I’d played with. I wanted to hear anything - but especially some good...

Today I just want to throw out this interesting and kind of controversial drumming question:

Should we actually set speed goals in our practicing and work on getting faster on the drums?

The two main camps in the drumming world offer opposing opinions on this…

There’s the “chops” world - The school of thought that pushes quick hand technique, impressive foot technique, and lightning-fast fills around the kit. Then there’s the “groove” world - The school of thought that puts groove, feel, and vocabulary before speed and technique. For some reason most drummers fall into one of these two camps. Now the “chops” camp was a bigger deal back in the 70s and 80s with the onset of jazz “fusion,” led by drummers like Dave Weckl and Dennis Chambers. That was when every young drummer had the dream of going to music school at Berklee, where one might learn how to attain such drumming...