Music Advocacy and Tips from BlueTimbre

Tips to practice on your practice pad.(Setting up and warming up)

1. First setup your practice pad at such a height that the sticks do not touch your legs (there should be no hindrance while playing).
2. If you have a bass drum pad adjust the distance between yourself and the bass drum pad. Check the beater tension on your bass drum pedal before playing (Preferably adjust the tension slightly tighter while practicing so they will help your related muscles get stronger to play harder and faster).
3. Having a metronome where you can easily access them to change tempos when required is important.
4. If you are using headphones to play the clicks from your metronome please make sure they are not loud as the frequency of the sound from the metronome will be too high and they would cause problems to your hearing.
5. Have a music stand nearby so the music sheets (notations) can be placed to comfortably read and play.

Starting to play.

1. Before we start playing plan your course of study to practice for that day as we might get carried away with multiple things. Warming up our hands, foot and our mind is also very important.
2. Have a set of standard rudiments which you think will help you warm up Ex: Single strokes, double strokes paraddidle, triplets all played in quarters, eighths and sixteenths. Also use them for the foot.
3. Now when you start to play your first exercise always start slow and once you start feeling comfortable gradually increase the tempo.
4. Mark the time limit that you are going to take to play the exercise and move on to the next exercise.
5. Also try to come up with new ideas which you think sounds good and you can use them to play along in a band or to build a solo. Make a note of them as we might forget them.

Finally, practise everyday. The longer we play the better we play.

It is better to play for 20 minutes everyday than for 2 hours once a week.