I’ve mentioned in other posts that I have a lot of middle school and high school students who have very busy schedules. I try to give them ideas for ways to rehearse efficiently, get things done in a short amount of time and gain some technical mastery while they are at it.
The truth is that a student’s rehearsal time is often dictated by 1) what the next audition requires, 2) an upcoming concert, or 3) something that the student heard played by one of their drum heroes on a web video. The focus is momentary, but at least there is motivation to learn. Longer-term goals and objectives aren’t necessarily in the mix…
Lately I have started to ask my drum set students to improvise for a few minutes every day. I learned this from a Billy Martin video, “Life on Drums”. Improvising opens the mind, keeps the brain “in the moment”, and is fun! Does it help with the next marching band audition? Probably not, but it does give the student a sense of what is possible on the instrument. It also can expose things that we want to play, but cannot, at the moment execute as well (or at all) as we would like. Finally, it gives the students a way to build their own “personality” on the instrument, something that is important for every drummer to develop, no matter the type of music that they play.