the Pocket

One of the hardest things to teach drummers is feel or how to “sit in the pocket.”

The best way that I can explain how to achieve a sense of feel is to emphasize the importance of the space between your hits. Good drummers have an awareness of the space between each stroke and how to manipulate that space to play in different pockets.  Sometimes the best way to learn is to take things to an extreme, making your self  learn how to sense the biggest space between hits possible. The most useful exercise ( and possibly the most excruciating) that helped me with feel was to take 5 mins of each practice to play a very simple drum beat at a 40bpm click. Each click equals a quarter note. I would play nothing but the most simple beat, so I could leave the most space possible between hits.

Once I felt I could comfortably play at this tempo (where I was so on the click  that the click disappeared) then I would try playing for 5 mins just slightly behind the beat and then just slightly on top of the beat. Often times the simplest exercises will be the most profound in your playing so even though it might seem mundane or boring know that it is effecting how you play the  drums. I guarantee if you  begin each practice session with this exercise, in a month you will notice a difference in your sense of time and your feel.