Practice Pads…..why I hate them

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Aghhhhhhhhhh!

Practice pads…..those little round rubber pieces of junk. Every drummer who’s ever taken lessons has been coerced into buying one, with the hope that by beating on this thing endlessly he or she will become a better drummer. NONSENSE!! You will become a better pad beater…I guarantee that.

I will stipulate that if you live in a 3 foot by 3 foot 5th floor walk-up in any city, you have little choice but to beat on a pad……..but even there you can go a rehearsal space and if you have the money you can beat on the drums…..real drums…….for an hour; and you can get ALOT done in an hour of practice on a real set of drums!

Drums are an instrument, and in the right hands are indeed a beautiful instrument. Any time spent behind a set of drums is time well spent in my book. Whether I’m practicing or playing a gig, I’m always happy to be behind a set of REAL DRUMS. You can respond to the way the drums sound, the way they feel, and in turn that can cause you to CREATE, become inspired, and in the process become a BETTER DRUMMER.

In my youth I “studied” drums with Joe Morello. I’d go there on Saturdays for my lesson, along with sometimes 8 or 9 other guys. Joe was always late, so we’d wind up in the practice room with……you guessed it, practice pads……going over our lessons for that week. Imagine the sound…….8 drummers tapping away on gum rubber glued to wood!

As you might have already guessed, we all became really really good pad beaters. I’d hazard a guess that Joe Morello students as a group are probably the greatest pad beaters on the planet! Some of them became really great drummers too……but that was IN SPITE of this ridiculous pad-beating habit we developed in those days, not because of it. For my own part, I can say that I rose to a very high level of pad beating….one of the better ones if I can brag a bit. However, another alarming thing started to happen to me…….I started getting less and less gigs, and found that fewer people wanted to play with me.

FWIW, I was rather young when I started getting gigs…….maybe 13 or so. I had enough desire and natural ability that I wound up being in some pretty popular local bands back in the day. My parents (to their ultimate dismay) bought me a real drumset, and I had Jon Bonham to listen to…..what more could I need? Well, chops, I was told…..and if you wanted chops, and you lived in or near Union New Jersey, you went to Joe Morello. Now, lest I be depicted as a “Joe Morello Basher”, I learned a heluva lot from that guy. I have him to thank for enjoying a very long career as a drummer without sustaining any serious injuries like tendonitis, etc., thanks to his technique, involving muscular relaxation and rebounds. I am forever grateful for this knowledge, and more.

However, as I became so obsessed with pad beating, a very large part of my musical development got neglected as a result….the MUSICAL part. You might say that a sense of balance is called for here. Spend time on both…….drums for the musical stuff, pads for the chops. NO!!! there isn’t anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that you can do on a pad that you can’t do on a real drum better!! If it’s chops you’re after, practice on a snare drum ferchrissake!! The drumset requires coordination, interdependence of limbs, dynamics…..musical things!

The pads? A complete waste of time………

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