by Nathan Hawthorne

Created on: April 26, 2008

Soloing, a word that many drummers dread, but heres some tips.

Ok so you want to solo like the people on the top. you want to be swinging your head around while beating the music out of those beautful drums. How you gonna do it? By practicing. Simple.

Ok so first of all you need to practice rudiments everytime your on your drums, rudiments rain your hands so that your can play better, faster, and do complicated fills and solos. If you don't know what the rudiments are just search them on the internet, theres many sites that tell you what they are (theres 40 but you should only practice a ew at a time) and also show you by video how to do it and how to incorporate it into your playing.

A good idea is to watch solos on the internet, these give you the ideas of what people go crazy about and what people just hate. Type in some famous durmmers maybe or even just type "drum solo" on a video site and voila! you got an example.

When your with your band (if you are in one) tell your guitarists to lay down some tunes for you or solo himself and just play over the top of him see how you can fit things in and try to get the feel for solos.

Try things like solos with just cymbals, or even just on ONE cymbal doing different rudiments and tricks.

Tricks. Yeah you read right. Tricks.
Trciks are useful things they make you look good, a solo could be a simple beat with cool tricks and spinning sticks and you'll still look great.

Position your drums well. Don't have them to far apart and have everything comfortable. A large kit is not always good for soloing on. Large kits are more likely to confuse and bother you than help you. But i guess they do look cool:D .

Something notable is that many drummers don't liek to solo or don't thnk it's necessary. I don't think a particularly long solo is necessary myself. I just go for a solo a few bars long then get back to what we were originally playing. People like me who aren't to big on solos aren't to big on solos because we believe that the drums main purpose is to be in the background keeping time and supplying cool fills. But a solo every now and then can't hurt can it?

So whatever you do keep practising, keep playing and keep watching. This way you'll excel and one day you might be up there with the elite who knows? PLAY ON!

Learn more about this author, Nathan Hawthorne.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.