If you are already playing in a band and you perform regularly, you have to face a lot of difficulties that only drummers understand. Here are a few tips for drummers who are determined to make music by all means…
Take care of your ears
All professional drummers do not sit down to play without earplugs in their ears and take care of their hearing when in clubs with loud music or at other bands concerts. You can buy earplugs in any drugstore. They are good not only for playing, but also for travelling, when you want to get some sleep and when you don’t want to hear your singer singing in agony.
Get quality instrument cases
If you want your drums and cymbals to last as long as possible, put them in hard covers. They cost more than soft ones, but they’ll help you keep your instrument in one piece when you travel. A drum kit is not easy, so it’s best to transport it in something with wheels. Think about it when you go out and about to play somewhere.
Insure your drum kit
Find a way to insure your instrument if you’ve been offered a job and have to tour a lot. The whole civilized world has long insured things dear to your heart and wallet against theft. Especially since your success depends on it. Musical instruments cost a lot of money, so they are often stolen from musicians who travel and rehearsal bases as well. By insuring your implements, you won’t find yourself in the dreaded situation of having no drums and no money to buy new ones.
Take only the essentials with you
Rarely does a drummer carry his entire drum kit with him everywhere. They usually bring cymbals, 2 pairs of sticks (you must have a spare), snare drum, a spare plastic for it and a pedal. If you do decide to carry all the drums, you have to take a spare plastic for each one. In general, learn to make the most of the minimum. If you’re good, you’ll play great even on pots.
Learn to assemble and disassemble your drum kit quickly
You’ll have minutes, maybe even seconds, to do it on stage. The audience doesn’t like to wait, so practice assembling and disassembling your instrument under a stopwatch, just like the military assembles and disassembles a machine gun. Experienced drummers assemble the pedal and cymbal racks backstage, and then take everything away with them after the show and take it all apart and put it backstage there.
Be flexible
Many times you’ll find that drum sets are different everywhere. Very often they are worn out by life: somewhere they lack a normal chair on which you can sit and not fall down, somewhere – racks from which the cymbals would not fly with whistling, and somewhere a bass drum, which would not sound like a bag of potatoes, which is thrown from the 3rd floor. You have to get used to all this horror, and you also have to make it all sound and rock the audience.