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...

During several college summers and falls, I worked at a local high school with the marching band. I generally worked with the front ensemble or “pit,” which consisted of all the mallet instruments, synthesizers, and other auxiliary percussion. This was a lot of fun, and a lot of it was right up my alley as a percussion performance major in college. I had never played in marching band myself, but I knew and understood the instruments the kids were playing.

To be honest, though, I always felt a little bit like a fraud in this job. This was classic “imposter syndrome,” where you feel like you don’t really know what you’re doing and you’re going to be “found out” at any moment. I felt like I was teetering on the edge of that cliff the entire time I worked this school job. The kids were great, the instructors were great, and the band director was a great guy to work for. But I always felt like I wasn’t really cut out for doing...

There’s something you must lose if you want to gain speed, control, and stability on the drums. Maybe you can relate to this…

But first I have to hijack this email with something else I'm excited about. I hardly ever share personal, family stuff in these emails, but this is something I have to tell you.

My wife and I had a baby this month!

We're thrilled to welcome our new baby girl into the world and to spend less time sleeping and more time changing diapers. :) Life is super busy in a new way right now, but thanks to the modern technology of a digital business the Non Glamorous Drummer can keep humming along as usual. We now have an extra mouth to feed here at the Clark household, so be sure to enroll in my premium courses on the website. ;) Just kidding - This isn't a hard sell, so do what you want to. But if you do want to sign up for a course I won't stop you.

Ok on with today's promised email lesson...

When I was in high school, I had my chops together and I...

You probably caught the video a couple of weeks ago about “why we drop sticks” and how to avoid it. I started thinking, though, about some additional tips that I didn’t mention…

Have you ever dealt with thumb fatigue?

…that kind of pain in your thumb joint that often results from squeezing too tightly on the sticks when you play? This was something that I began to realize I was facing regularly. One time it got so bad that my hands ached for two days after a gig. I knew I had to do something…but what? I began to find some solutions, some mental and some physical. I made a video about this last summer, which I encourage you to check out if you haven’t seen it. (I’ll throw a link down below!)

If you feel like there’s a grip issue behind your dropping sticks, one of the thumb-fatigue solutions might help.

I noticed that the only time I had bad thumb pain while playing was when my hands were cold or dry. If they...