M&Ms - How to get kids to love practice using the STAR process

Developing Muscle Memories (M&Ms) is a critical learning requirement for drummers. M&Ms can be defined as the ability to repeat a drum beat/rudiment instantly without using much of your brain memory during the drumming process

This is critical as trying to remember the various permutation & combinations of drum strokes can take you away from focusing on the task at hand like listening to the music, other band members playing or developing a groove feel within the time signature

Here is a good way to develop M&Ms using the STAR process,

1.      Start Slow – Focus on developing Control vs Speed. It is very important to start ALL lessons SLOW. The idea it to play real slow with repetition getting your muscles to memorize the particular movement/s

Start slow then gradually increase to a medium and fast tempo. You will know your limits when you start faltering your beat or lose control. Once you find that high threshold, practice going down to your medium and slow speeds. Then repeat steps

2.      Time bound – Next step is to break groove/beat down into small parts and practice in smaller chunks. Then start putting it together into required time signature. Practice these in various time patterns to become comfortable enough to apply to/with any song or groove

3.      Adapt – When we are learning new things there is a tendency to tense up. Thus it’s critical to first learn the right hand/foot technique and then relax while playing. It’s important to pay attention to your posture, distance to the various drum parts and breadth normally while practicing

4.      Repeat using a metronome – Finally it’s very important to develop your internal clock to play consistently at various tempos. So start using a metronome for your practice gradually increasing from Slow- Medium-Fast tempos until you feel very comfortable in being able to play the groove or beat without actually using the metronome

So go ahead and enjoy those M&Ms !