How to Learn and Play Drums Without a Drum Set (with short video)
Can you learn drums without a drum set? Yes! Here are some key ways to play drums without a kit.
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Beginners, up to advanced and professional drummers need to practice consistently to sound their best and learn new beats and techniques. But all drummers sometimes find themselves without a kit to bash on.
This might be because you need to practice quietly. Perhaps you need ways to practice drums in an apartment where your neighbours are close by or at home without annoying people you live with.
Some drummers may not be ready to take the plunge and purchase a kit, but still want to practice.
But fear not, there are lots of ways to work on your technique and chops without a drum kit and playing quietly in the process.
Whether you are learning from a teacher, from books, or from online courses, you’ll want to put your new skills into practice. Below we take a look at how to learn, practice and play drums without a drum set.
Below are our top five ways to practice drums without a drum kit:
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Use practice pads
In the absence of a drum kit to play on the next best option is a drum practice pad. These are designed to reduce noise drummers make, so even if you have a kit available they can be a good option if you live in apartment or don’t want to annoy neighbours or housemates.
By reducing overtones practice pads help drummers to hear whether their strokes are even and clear, so they can work on that all important consistency.
They also vary in terms of how much rebound a drummer gets from hitting the pad. This means they can help drummers to build strength in their fingers, hands, wrists and arms.
Ultimately this helps to play consistently, clearly, fast and with endurance - which you’ll need for long songs, long gigs and long jam or practice sessions.
See our guide to the best practice pads here. This also includes tips on how to practice on a practice pad.
2. Use pillows, cushions, or your legs
A woman hitting cushions with drum sticks in order to practice quietly without a drum kit.
While practice pads are a great way of working on your technique, not every drummer has one, especially if you are new to drumming. A great way of building the muscles in your arms and to learn the rhythms in your favourite tunes is to play on cushions and pillows. Dave Grohl has previously mentioned that he developed his power from playing on pillows. There are a couple of caveats however:
Hitting pillows will damage them over time. Make sure you use pillows and cushions that you don’t mind damaging a little - not your mum’s best!
The rebound is very different on a pillow compared to a real acoustic or electronic drum kit. Be conscious of working your fingers as well as your arms and wrists to develop the proper control you need over your sticks.
Playing sticking patterns on your legs is also a good way of strengthening your muscles for drumming. It doesn’t hurt too much or make too much noise.
3. Air drumming
Air drumming sounds like the pursuit of an embarrassing uncle at a wedding, but it can actually be a useful way of practicing when you can’t get behind a kit. Because a key element of playing drums is muscle memory, teaching your body to move in the right ways is important. Practice with sticks moving around an air drum kit to improve your fluidity and memorise parts for songs.
4. Strengthening your fingers
Strengthening your fingers is a vital but often overlooked aspect of drumming, and it doesn’t even require a kit to work on.
Check out our guide to improving your drum stick grip here or our guide to ten products for improving your grip.
There are a few effective ways you can do this which I do while watching TV.
Firstly, you can take a stick, hold it between your pivot - thumb and forefinger, and then work the stick with each finger in turn.
For example perform eight air-strokes using only your middle finger, then your ring finger, and then your pinkie, and repeat.
Do this with both hands, either individually or together. You will be surprised how much this helps your stick control.
Use a stress ball or finger and grip strength trainer (there are a number of different options available for this: I use a grip strength egg or trainer). Work out each finger in turn, particularly on your weaker hand.
These exercises wont help with coordination or learning song parts, but they will improve your stick control and can be done while you’re doing other things.
5. Listening and transposing
Listening and internalising other drummers’ playing is a key part of learning to play drums.
If you can’t get to a kit listen in great detail to drummers who you respect and admire: figure out how licks that you like are being played, or at least how they sound, so when you can get to a kit you can bust them out in your playing.
You will also notice over time that you start to play things you’ve heard and properly engaged with automatically.
If you are learning specific songs not having access to a kit can actually be helpful: this gives you distraction-free time to listen and understand the different parts of a song and what you need to do to emulate.
I listen to songs I am supposed to be learning on repeat on the train or in the car where I can’t play over them and pick up bad habits.
An additional step is to actually transpose licks, solos or whole songs: doing this in your head is what i have described above, but actually writing out the drum parts forces you to really listen and understand what is being played.
This will help you to pick up the language of the musical styles you like to play. For this you’ll need good manuscript paper or software.
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How to hold drum sticks is a key question for new and even experienced drummers. In particular drummers may often be wondering whether traditional grip or matched grip is best for them to hold the sticks. In this guide we give a brief comparison of the techniques to help you decide.