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This year I became involved with several projects, and some days I´ll have two (3 hour long) different rehearsing...
I feel great ´cause I´m good part of the day behind the kit, but somehow I feel that I don´t make as much progress as if I spend that time practicing by my own...
Some of the projects that I´m playing on are more profitable than others, and I´m thinking about dumping a couple of things to spend that time practicing by myself...

Did you ever feel the same way about this ? Any comments? Thanks!

(btw, I play drums everyday no less than 4/5 hours -either rehearsing or practicing-)

Playing with a band is it's own kind of (very important) skill that gets refined the more time you spend doing it. I would usually consider that priority over shedding. However if there's NO shedding time at all, then I would make a little time for that if possible. However, making music is always the priority over just drumming.

There is a lot you can, should, and need to learn/practice when playing with a live band. Giving up bands to practice by yourself is sort of like giving up a girlfriend to work on your game. It might pay off later, but generally speaking it defeats the entire purpose. Maybe a better analogy might be when learning a foreign language, giving up time speaking with a native speaker so you can work on vocabulary.

Record your playing with the bands, and look for little holes to improve.
That can make a big jump in musicality, timing, arrangements, technical weakness in our playing.

The PLAYING/LISTENING/TAKING NOTES/PLAYING circle makes wonders.

You can do the listening/taking note work in your free/home time, with a better perspective.

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The recording thing is a thing that almost everyone of us know, but remembering it is good....

Ditto what everyone here has said plus, you never know what other opportunities will arise out of your work with any of these bands....the networking aspect is something I wouldn't want to give up to shed. Of course make sure you have at least some time to shed. I mean even 1 hour a day, maybe get to each rehearsal half an hour early and work on a bit of stuff then.

Make sure every note counts. When you shedd, a lot of notes are blown out for no reason. Live, all the notes matter; it like speaking a sentence compared to mumbling really fast.

But there are cases where the band is so frikkin lame that you want to run. Also, if you do not want to be at a rehearsal with a lame band, it is better to practice by yourself because you want to do it.

Steve Holmes wrote:Playing with a band is it's own kind of (very important) skill that gets refined the more time you spend doing it. I would usually consider that priority over shedding. However if there's NO shedding time at all, then I would make a little time for that if possible. However, making music is always the priority over just drumming.

Pretty much this. There is no substitute for playing with other people, IMO.

Juan Expósito wrote:Record your playing with the bands, and look for little holes to improve.
That can make a big jump in musicality, timing, arrangements, technical weakness in our playing.

The PLAYING/LISTENING/TAKING NOTES/PLAYING circle makes wonders.

You can do the listening/taking note work in your free/home time, with a better perspective.

* * * * * * * *
The recording thing is a thing that almost everyone of us know, but remembering it is good....

Absolutely! I've been recording myself at all performances lately and taking notes on everything, and it does work wonders.

I always found when I was super busy (musically or otherwise) I could sneak a little pad time in to reinforce basic technique, something I find usually suffers when I play a lot. Like ballplayers who, after playing 80 games need to take a bit of time to work on their swing.