In this article, I’ll show you how you can improve your drums and continue to practice… without them.

Let’s be honest, our beloved instrument is great, but it also has a few drawbacks.

Perhaps you live in a small apartment, and since it’s quite large and heavy, it won’t be easy to install one in your living room.

Or maybe you just can’t afford it right now. It’s expensive, and it’s not uncommon to be ready to start your practice long before your wallet is. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

You may also be temporarily without access to a battery and fear slowing down your progress or, worse still, losing some of your hard-won skills.

But don’t worry, there are solutions to improve at least some aspects of your drumming without even owning a drum kit. And I’m going to tell you which one so you can start using it right away.

 

1. Practice power and precision with a pillow

Even if you don’t own a battery, chances are you own a pillow. In fact, I hope you have one, and not just for training…

The biggest drawback of a pillow is that it prevents your sticks from bouncing. And you know what? That’s exactly what we’re going to use it for.

Because even though there won’t be much musicality (unless you own one of the incredible devices we discovered at NAMM)) since you don’t have the bounce to help you, you have to use pure strength and wrist mobility to hit it with your sticks.

Imagine yourself as a boxer with a punching bag. The bag is heavy and doesn’t move much. This allows the boxer to improve the power of his punches and kicks, and also to work on his movement.

That’s exactly what you’re going to do with your pillow

You can even try “playing” faster to improve mobility and wrist strength, and apply it directly to a real battery when you have access to one.

2. Flexibility and coordination with a treadmill

Well, that sounds a bit obvious. But if you have a treadmill, that doesn’t mean you can’t use your pillow. In fact, the two are complementary.

If the pillow is your punching bag as a boxer, think of the training cushion as your boxing pear (OK, that’s enough boxing analogy here).

With a training pad, you benefit from maximum bounce and can use it to work on your basics, such as the paradiddle.

Work with a click and try to go from a very slow tempo to a much higher bpm step by step.

Believe me, you’ll be glad you did when you get back to your battery.

link Sébastien Polisset uses this technique to perfectly imitate electronic samples on acoustic drums.

Don’t forget the footwork. Try playing the bass drum on every beat and the hi-hat on beats 2 and 4, for example.

link If you don’t own a training pad, you can get the same one I’m using here.

 

3. Train your ears