The most important thing to remember about home drum practice is to keep your family happy. They need to be for you and not against you. Once they have agreed to have drums in the home, you need to agree on the amount of practice time. As for me, one hour daily is the magic number. We do not have roll over minutes in our house. It is good to skip days sometime to let you family know that you are thinking about them. As any drummer knows, it is easy to get lost in time when practicing, especially when playing to music. So when your wife comes in and points to her watch, you smile and say, "Yes Dear."

Communicate to you family the importance of regular practice. If you skip too may days in a row you can tell and it takes a couple of days or more to regain what you lost. I quit playing for many years and when I started back, it took a year to feel completely at home on the throne. I still had the moves in my head but getting the sticks on the skins was a completely different endeavor.

Consider you practice time special time and make the most of every minute. Plan out what you will be doing during practice. When you learn how to be led by your inner man (heart) you will know how to practice more effectively. Get one thing nailed down before going on to more complicated drumming.

Always listen to music beyond you ability as direction for future practices. Get those moves of your favorite drummer in you head before you start trying to play them out. If you listen enough you can be talking to you best friend with that new beat playing in the background of you mind. Then it will just be a matter of time until you play it out.

Your physical body can always do what you mind can conceive. Before you know it you will be producing you own style that others desire of you. It all starts in the mind. Do not under estimate the power of you mind and its ability to create for you. Some drummers get it backwards right here. They become copy cats in stead of creating from within.

Some days use your entire practice time on developing your tuning skills. You want to know each of your drum's best sound. You need to be able to hear it in you mind so when you tune a drum to that sound you will know it. The sound that you like and your drum's best sound may not be the same. Let the drum have it's way.

Here are a couple of tips to deal with drum noise while practicing. Sometimes use a bed sheet draped over your entire kit. Tuck it around the drums so the sheet is lying flat on the drumheads. Put some type of thin packing material on the striking zone of the batter head of the bass drum. Headphones for family members to listen to their favorite music or teaching CD's work well while you are practicing.

Fred Fishburne

Fred Fishburne entered the natural health field in 1994 when he and his wife Ann purchased their first health store, ProHealth Nutrition, in McDonough, Georgia. Today their store has tripled in size and customer base as they continue to serve the community through teaching proper nutrition and fitness and stocking the latest cutting edge health supplements in their store.