If you’ve spent any time digging around the internet for drumming education material, you’ve likely found a lot of different opinions and methods out there. We like to trust that because someone is teaching online, they must therefore know what they’re talking about. Unfortunately that’s not always the case, so today we’re debunking 5 “flawed drumming philosophies” that you really ought to avoid. Let’s get started!

1) “You must master the snare before learning the drumset.”

Before I ever started taking drum lessons in high school, I owned a book that was sort of like a “beginner drummer’s encyclopedia” of everything drums. In a lot of ways, this book was super helpful. It explained a lot of the musical jargon we drummers use, including basic music theory and time signature. But this method strongly pushed the concept of learning snare drum etudes and mastering every kind of rudiment and roll before...

We all have our favorite earbuds, speakers, or headphones that we enjoy using to listen to our favorite music. But many of us face the challenge of struggling to hear what the drums are actually doing on recordings.

Sometimes it’s tough to discern the kick pattern, and sometimes it’s really hard to tell if you’re hearing snare ghosting or additional hihat notes. And oftentimes there are so many layered parts on a recording that it’s tough to pick out what you should actually play on the drums.

This is the struggle for a lot of drummers, and I want to help you solve this in two ways:

#1) Explore how a higher quality pair of in-ears or headphones can make detailed listening easier

#2) Teach you strategies for listening more deeply and picking out parts - with whatever headphones you may have

Here’s an important listening / “mixing” truth you need to understand:

Turning up the bass on a recording doesn’t always make it easier to hear...

Today’s post is serving a purpose none other than to give you a super nerdy, detailed breakdown of every piece of essential drumming and recording gear I use regularly here in my home studio. I hope you enjoy!

We’ll break this up into categories to keep things organized. Here’s what I’ll cover:

• Drums & Cymbals
• Microphones
• Recording Gear
• Room & Acoustical Equipment

*Quick note: I don’t have any official gear endorsements. So know that these are all genuinely my favorite things that I paid for with my money. :) Also, you’ll find that I’m a gear minimalist.

Drums & Cymbals

My main studio kit is a Gretsch Renown (gloss natural finish), which is maple shells with Gretsch’s “silver sealer” on the insides. These drums are smaller than standard rock sizes, but I believe they’re more versatile as a result (topic for another email or video!). The kick is 20”x16”, the two toms that I use...

We’re gearing up for Christmas here at the Clark household, and we're super excited for our 5-month-old daughter's first Christmas! :)

If you’re blessed this Christmas with cash gifts you’d like to use on quality gear investments, I’ll give you some good ideas today.

Whether you’re new to the drums or a few decades into the instrument, make sure you own these 7 important tools for success. Of course, this is isn’t an exhaustive list because I could just as easily send you another email next week with 7 more things. But these are the most essential, most important physical items that will contribute most directly to your personal growth on the drums. Here we go!

[1] Metronome

Seems pretty obvious. However, plenty of players fail to regularly practice with a metronome either because they’re lazy (I’ve been guilty too!) - or they feel it might damage their “natural, organic feel” on the drums. The latter is false, by the way,...

One summer during college, some fellow music-major friends and I put together a band to play at a festival in a neighboring town. This was a big July 4th celebration out on a ball field right off Main Street, and there were going to be fireworks. This was slated to be a big deal, and we rehearsed for months leading up to this Saturday night.

I arrived early and set up my kit on the outdoor stage. (Yes, it’s the same kit you see in my basement today!). I had recently made a drum head upgrade to prepare for this very day, because I had previously had some pretty old beat-up heads on the kit. My shiny Zildjian A’s were also ready to go, and the kit looked beautiful.

The only weak point of the setup was my hardware. I was still using some cheap hardware that had come with the kit. It had held up fine for practicing at home, though, so I didn’t worry too much about it. I especially didn’t worry about my bass drum pedal, which was a pretty decent pedal I...

When I was in high school, I played a battle of the bands at a friend’s school. What never occurred to me until the middle of the show was that I had forgotten the most essential piece of gear that a drummer could have. Not the snare, not the bass drum pedal...not even the cymbals. More important than that.

We loaded in that Friday night, hauling in the black and gold Gretsch drumset from the church where my friend and I both played. This was a pretty nice kit, and though more suited for jazz, it held up just fine for Sunday mornings (and the occasional battle of the bands at a nearby high school). In addition to the sleek drumset, we had a whole stack of the ZBT “rock” cymbals ready to go. I could always count on those cymbals to make enough noise. But as a precaution, we also borrowed the large, folding drum shield from the church as well. Hopefully that would win the battle with the ZBT rocks.

Myself, my friend (who played bass in the high school worship...