You can practice in your basement and sound like Chris Coleman BUT as soon as you leave your comfort zone and go play live its a different animal! The more you play out and with different players the better you will become in time!
good word!
One thing I have heard from more respected pros this year is that guys today don't practice/play to recordings/CDs. To develop groove you have to play to groove.... Jeff Porcaro, Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie, J.R. Robinson.... Do it exactly like they do it so that you can devolp and absorb their vocabulary in to your own.
Find you a bass player and jazz pianist (not keyboardist... not church organist) to practice/jam with. THey will teach you to expand your rhythmic vocabulary while playing time.
Master the division of the Quarter note. You must learn to play time. Michael Packer DVD.
i second that!
another way to clean up slop is to learn how to read or simply "say" what you can play.
a very very good drummer told me that and it works for me. if you can say it, you can play it.
doing this will give you a concious of the speed and placement of every note that you play.
to me, the root of sloppiness comes from "guessing" and a lack of confidence in what you are playing. but like bbd said, youll gain confidence in simply playing out more. everything that i do, i make sure that i can do it twice, fast or slow.
if youre practicing and you try something that sounds halfway decent, (a groove, fill, or chop) take the time to clean it up. go over it again and again, note for note, slower speeds to faster speeds until you master it.
and like bigfoot said, its important that you feel the music. even when you master your grooves, fills and solos you have to know which ones are appropriate to play.
(just my thoughts and suggestions)
Sheen
