bart's nailed it on the head--take a step back and get a sense of what it is that you want to accomplish w/ practicing, and an idea of how to practice that works for you. some people work great at lots of 15-minute spurts during the day; some, marathon 8-hour sessions which are a bit unfeasible in the real world.
my $.002-- practice making things feel good. there's rarely a time that kick-snare-kick-snare or your basic swing beat simply WON'T work (emphasis on rarely-- not never). if you can rock out to something like "kashmir' and "take the A train" confidently and make them groove... then tbh you're a full length ahead of a lot of drummers i know.
all kidding aside, you're not a kid and you don't need to be force fed inverted paraddidles and swiss triplets to be a 'drummer.' all you need to do is play drums, and make them work in the context you're in. If you wanna play mustang sally with a band, practice mustang sally. if you wanna play mustang sally and change direction in a fill-- practice paraddidles.
i think you'll find the most joy by getting a balance of constantly asking yourself what skills you need to make X work better (make your over-analyzing work for youself), and just rocking the **** out. bring it on!
This is a good post, and reminds me of a student I had recently.
I had a woman, in her mid-30s, contact me for drum lessons. She had no music background, had never picked up a pair of sticks in her life and wanted to learn how to play the drumset. She went to Guitar Center one day, and bought a small, entry level kit. When we first got together, it was mostly talking about what she wanted to do, her goals, why she wanted lessons, etc. Bottom-line, she just wanted to be able to play along with a friend of hers who played acoustic guitar and sang. So from that day forward, we structured lessons around that particular goal, and eventually brought the friend in to play along during the lessons and I would give her ideas on what to play and critique her on her own playing ideas. Less than two months after she had started with me, she and her friend played their first gig and she did great. She did it with a snare, hi-hat and ride and incorporated both sticks and brushes.
Now, she's ready to start studying things like rudiments, independence, reading, etc. She'll continue to play gigs and play along to songs, continuing to build her vocabulary by doing that, and now, also via the more in depth study with me.
It just goes to show that there is no formula to learning something and the best place to start is by TRULY figuring out what your goal(s) are. The smaller, more specific you can get, the better. The key is to not overwhelm yourself with too many goals, or too many LONG term goals. I think this applies to everyone, regardless of what level you are at, but even more so to a beginner.
In general, as an adult beginner student, you have the luxury of knowing better how to assess goals and how/when to recognize desire and discipline and many other elements that are more difficult to assess and recognize when one is younger---especially the concept of being "realistic".
bobmc859 -- I would suggest starting by assessing your goals. You've already said you wanted to be able to jam with friends, etc., so maybe narrow the goal down to specific songs or better yet, a specific
song. Take it slow and steady, and try not to put so much pressure on yourself.
