I’m sure that most of us have read or listened to interviews with drummers that talk about how they used to “woodshed” for 8 hours a day, everyday. They loved the craft so much, and wanted to be so good, that they devoted themselves to such an intense practice schedule.

Good for them, I say.

However, I’m willing to bet that most of us can’t make that claim. Not that we don’t love the craft, and not that we don’t love drumming so much that we don’t want to practice. But really, several factors prevent most of us from taking on such a regimen: school, work, people, short attention span, easily bored… Any one or a combination of those factors prevent the majority from sacrificing the rest of our lives in order to practice, practice, practice.

Some drummers, unfortunately, are worse; they don’t practice enough. I know that, having taught for 14-plus years, most of my students fit that mold.

As a teacher, it’s part of my job to find a way to inspire my students to practice. One such method involves a 5-minute practice schedule.

That’s right. I said, “5-minute practice schedule.”

One of my favorite stories to tell students is that I learned how to play flam stutters in 5 minutes. I sat down in front of the TV one night and, during a commercial break, I broke down flam stutters, starting slowly to get the coordination down and then gradually speeding up to a medium-slow tempo. As a result, flam stutters were no longer a mystery and all I needed to do from that point on was to continue playing them until the rudiment was committed to muscle memory.

The most important thing about practicing isn’t necessarily how long you practice, but how well you practice. Practicing for 8 hours a day isn’t going to help much if all you do is sit there and mindlessly drum, not really working on anything. Think about what most drummers might do if they sat down at a drumset or a pad for 8 hours. They might play one thing for a little while, then move on to something else because it gets boring, then another, then another, all the while not really thinking about what it is they’re doing; not noticing the things they don’t like and need to work on; not determining if they’re being consistent while playing repetitive patterns; not concentrating on keeping a good tempo; not focusing on good technique; not playing well…

Playing for long periods of time will certainly help any drummer just through the physical act of drumming, which can help increase stamina and coordination through sheer repetition, but it is important to focus on what it is you’re playing and making sure it sounds and feels the way you want it to as opposed to playing just for the sake of playing.

The 5-minute practice schedule encourages students to pick one thing they need to work on – a rudiment, a pattern, a phrase, a tempo issue, chops – and then focus on that one thing for 5 minutes. It should be easy to find 5 minutes in a day to drum. When they get home from school, do they eat a snack before they do their homework? They should drum for 5 minutes when they’re done. Do they normally go to bed at 10:00 PM? Then they should go to bed at 10:05 PM.

When I talk about practicing to my students, I tell them how they can practice 30 minutes a day, everyday, if they use this method. A particular example would be:

• Get up in the morning, get ready, and head off to school. Once at school, pick one thing and drum for 5 minutes
• During lunch, drum for 5 minutes before heading to class
• Get home and, before doing homework, drum for 5 minutes
• Take a break from homework. Drum for 5 minutes
• Eat dinner, then drum for 5 minutes
• Drum for 5 minutes before going to bed

That scenario outlines 6 instances of drumming for 5 minutes. At the end of the day, they’ve practiced for at least 30 minutes. If they focused on one thing for each of those 5 minutes, whether it’s the same thing or something different each time, then that’s 30 minutes of focused practice.

I know this doesn’t really promote long-term focusing, but this method at least encourages the student to find and make time to practice. And the beauty of this method is this: if the student really loves to drum, really loves the physical act of drumming, they just might end up drumming for more than 5 minutes at a time.