Regaining long-lost self confidence on drums

[Matthew Warwick]

Hello, all. I'm "new" to the forum. The reason that is in quotation marks is that I was actually a member many years ago, but I didn't log in for a long time and my account was taken down because of that.

My username was xdrummer2000 (just to help long time members on here to remember who I am). I came on this forum at 15 years old thinking that I was a much better drummer than I actually was. However, this time around the story with me is much, much different. Basically, I need help regaining my confidence. I'll post the reasons below why I lost my confidence and how it all started. It's kind of a long read, but each detail is important.

I'll start off a bit describing my overall drumming experience and then I'll skip straight to the start of my problem. I started taking lessons in November 2001. I definitely wasn't what you would call naturally talented, but I was very passionate. I went through a period of arrogance in about 2004-2005 which sometimes resurfaced briefly for the next couple of years (unfortunately this arrogance reared its ugly head when I first became a member on this forum the first time around). It wasn't until 2006-2007 that I had a healthy level of confidence without much arrogance (except at certain times).

Now comes the problem. Starting in 2007 (the year I graduated high school), whenever I had a recording of myself playing that I could listen to at my leisure, I would take a metronome and try to gauge how good my tempo was. I would find that mostly my tempo was fine. Of course I wavered somewhat, but I'm definitely not what you'd call "great" or anything, so that is to be expected. But I felt such a strong need to have that "perfect" tempo.

Fast forward to 2008, I started doing the same thing, but it took an unhealthy turn. I started to over think my hits and I began to have small amounts of fear while playing in church that I was speeding up (whether I was or not, I wasn't too sure, I was just afraid). This would cause me to sometimes purposely pull the tempo back.

I still had confidence that I sounded good no matter what I did with the tempo when I played. I figured everybody would follow me perfectly and it would always sound good. But my loss of confidence was imminent.

Late in 2008, we did a live recording at church. Although we use in ear monitors today and sometimes click tracks as well, we didn't use either back then. This was when I REALLY started to over think my tempo. It would literally make me feel uncomfortable during certain parts of songs because I wasn't sure if my tempo was perfect.

Anyway, on the first night of the recording (we actually did 2 identical nights and they put the better of the two nights on the CD) I had this attitude like "This tempo HAS GOT TO BE totally 100% perfect because this is a recording that people will be hearing." And since it is natural when not using a click track live to speed up slightly and gradually, I figured that if I purposely and significantly held back on parts of the songs that I knew or felt I was most likely to speed up on, then that natural tendency to speed up slightly would be "cancelled out" and it would all end up perfect right in the middle (kind of like how cold water is expected to turn hot water in to warm water, right in the middle). After the concert I felt like I had really kicked butt playing on both nights. After some studio time at which I wasn't present, I was told that there was a section of one song which had to be "doctored" in the studio to make it sound right, but other than that, I was told my playing sounded "pretty sweet" and "articulate", to quote two band members, one of which is the worship Pastor. Boy was I in for a surprise when I first listened to the songs we recorded.

First of all, those parts where I thought slowing down or holding back on purpose would counterbalance the tendency to speed up sounded TERRIBLE. It sounded awkward and late in the beat. It sounded like the kind of thing that makes you want to slap the drummer in the back of the head and say "come on, play on time!".

On top of that, there were certain small mistakes or little sloppy moments in almost all the other songs by which I was also caught off guard. And if that stuff wasn't enough, the CD was mixed atrociously. I didn't go into the studio, so I really didn't have any preview.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I knew the mixing wasn't my fault. I did over think the muffling on the toms beforehand, and they also had batter heads that badly needed replacement, so the toms sounding dead were probably my fault, but other than that, I knew I wasn't responsible for the mix sounding bad.

But I couldn't help but come down hard on myself for the playing mistakes, especially the slowing down and holding back on purpose. I thought I was a good drummer. I knew I definitely wasn't the best, but I thought I could at least play basic beats and fills proficiently. This was where my doubts and loss of confidence started.

During 2009 and 2010 I had a lot of issues relating to my anxiety (which has obviously not been any help behind the drums either, haha), and other than playing in church I did not practice at home except for maybe one or two times. I was too worried over other things to be worried about that CD with all those mistakes on it. But the loss of confidence was still there.

It got really bad about last year when I started to record myself on a regular basis. Since I don't have recording equipment, I would record myself either on my mom's camera or the "voice memo" function on my I Phone and then sync it up with the music I was playing along with. Sometimes I wouldn't sync it up just perfect and it would pretty much all sound off, but I started to blame this on my seeming lack of playing abilities as opposed to the fact that I just didn't sync it up correctly. This would cause me to purposely try and play a little ahead or behind where I played before (depending on whether I synced up the song a little behind or ahead of the song). There would be one or two very slight but still noticeable mistakes when I played a song and synced it up correctly, but I still came down hard on myself for those. I would start spending sometimes hours on end both at home and in my dorm room at college recording myself on my phone or my mom's camera, syncing up the music and playing, and listening to it trying to spot any mistakes. Sometimes the syncing would be a little off, and again, I'd blame it on myself and try to compensate for it while playing despite the fact that it was just the syncing that was the problem. I did record myself with my mom's camera playing at a music get-together with other churches in my hometown of Tracy, CA, and despite some slight mistakes, the recordings were okay. But here is the other thing. I sometimes question whether I really am sounding as good as I think I am on a camera recording. I question whether the lower quality compared to a direct recording is hiding any tiny mistakes or not. I can hear mistakes pretty distinctly either way, but I still question whether a camera recording (or cell phone recording) is a decent tool for gauging myself. I question everything now.

This is going to sound crazy, but I have seriously spent dozens of times last semester and a few times this semester so far in my room, sometimes for 4 or 5 hours straight playing the SAME song over and over again trying to make no mistakes. But I'm so nervous that I'm going to slow down, speed up, that I'm ahead or behind the beat, that I'm going to play something sloppily, and various other things, and I can't play consistently. Sometimes I think my mind is so skeptical of what's on time and what's not that I start hearing mistakes that aren't there (this has happened before even when I listen to professional drummers play). Sometimes I'll listen to something a few times, and I'll only hear a certain mistake on one or two listens but not the others.

I'm a total wreck, and I have very little if any confidence behind my drums. Heck, I don't even feel confident playing on my practice pad in my dorm room or even just tapping along to music I hear with my hands when I hear music in the store, bowling alley, or other public place with music. I am very hyper-vigilant about most of my playing, even down to individual hits. I've become so sensitive to mistakes that I can spot if a single hit is off by a 32nd note (or 64th in the case of a slower song). I even notice mistakes when I'm listening to world class drummers (albeit those mistakes are few and far between, but I still notice them). And the frustrating part is this: I make certain mistakes that I don't notice while playing. Then, I listen to a recording and I hear them then. I don't feel like I can just let go and have fun playing if I make those mistakes.

I know now that if I hadn't made the stupid decision to purposely slow down and hold back throughout that recording we did, it would have sounded significantly better. Yes, the other small mistakes I didn't mean to make would be there, but it would have been better. And I likely wouldn't be worried today if that was the case.

Still, I can't help but feel like a failure. I've been playing for ten years! I know that doesn't necessarily make me good on its own, but I feel like I should be way better than I am (i.e. I should be able to play a basic song perfectly most of the time with absolutely not one hit even slightly out of time).

This will sound arrogant of me, but everyone, and I mean EVERYONE around me tells me I'm good. My worship pastor tells me I'm the best drummer he's ever played with (and he's played with tons of drummers), and the other band members tell me similar things. But they also think that recording we did sounded good (just look at the quotes by two of them I gave earlier in this post). If they think such a crappy recording is good, I feel like I can't trust them. And I don't really trust any complements I get anymore. I hear mistakes clearly, but others, even other musicians, don't seem to. Again, I am no longer comfortable when I play. And most of the time when I play or practice, I'm not doing it for the fun of it. I do it because I want to prove to myself that I am good enough at something that I am so passionate about doing. I'm afraid to just let go and have fun when I play and not record myself because whenever I did that in the past, there would still most of the time be a couple or three hits in a song that were a little out of time. I wish there was a way I could know exactly how well I played while I am playing so that I could let go and not be caught off guard by any mistakes I might hear on a recording.

I know some of this sounds insane, but it's all true. I love playing drums, and I used to think I was good. But now, despite what anyone tells me, I don't feel I'm good at all. I see other drummers who have been playing about as long as I have, and they don't make very many mistakes. And I seem to take other people's slight mistakes with a grain of salt, but with my own I take it with a truckload of salt. And when I have good recordings of myself, I start to question whether those are just anomalies. And then I try to play again to see if I'm actually able to do it consistently. Some days I have seen glimpses of the consistency I want, but I can't seem to hold on to that consistency.

I e-mailed Bart Elliott a month or so ago and asked him about this and he invited me to rejoin the cafe. I told him I might wait a few months so that I could get most of the semester out of the way first, but it's urgent now because this obsession I have with proving to myself that I am good enough is distracting me from both my social life and my homework. And I just got hired on campus to wash dishes in the cafeteria on weekends, so I need to manage this better. I know I'll need to use my own will power to tell myself that I need to do homework or talk to friends instead of proving myself on drums to myself, but it means so much to me that I can't help but think about it most of the day. And by the way, it's become a natural habit for me to be anxious about mistakes when I'm playing. In other words, I wish I could stop being anxious, but my mind does it automatically. I realize I was definitely a cleaner drummer when I was confident and that overfocusing actually created other mistakes that I didn't think I would create. Now, though I feel like I've dug myself into a deep hole and I can't climb out.

Bart told me when I e-mailed him that he experienced confidence issues when he was in college. Has anybody else experienced them too? And has anybody ever had recordings they did which contained mistakes that caught them off guard like that CD did to me?

I appreciate any advice, and I promise I'll do my end of the work to get back to the mindset I should be in.

[Todd Norris]

Hey Matthew,

Welcome back to the Cafe!  That's quite a post!  Your passion towards the craft is inspiring!  I'm sure there will be a lot more useful comments coming from more experienced players, but part of your post struck a chord with me. 

I discovered a few years ago that my timing isn't as good as it should be either.  We started working with a metronome and I was horrified at how much my (and our collective) tempos were.  There was a brief period where I was paranoid and it inhibited my playing.  The worship leader told me to "hold the band in time", but without a lot of practice as a group, far more than we are currently doing, it wasn't working well. 

I realized that many years of playing as lead drummer in my bagpipe band had two profound affects on me.  1)  The time in band varied pretty wide, and I didn't always notice it.  (bad thing).  2)  I was able to bend and flex my playing to fit all of the nuances and mathematical differences that the pipers had from note to note and tune to tune so that I fit in extremely well with them, as evidenced by high ensemble scores.  (good thing). 

So what I ended up doing is using the met to set the tempo, keep an eye on it from time-to-time just to keep the tempos reasonably close, then just PLAY and worship.  Steady tempos are important, but I also think it's OK to let the music breathe a little, especially live.  Maybe that's too much pipe band in me, but that's where I'm at.  I also find that trying to synchronize my metronome to many recordings doesn't work at all.  Even some great recordings fluctuate a bit. 

So, to summarize my 2 cents:  Don't worry so much about it.  Practice with a met to help develop that inner clock, but don't stress out about whether the tempo varies by a couple bpm. 

And as for the "mistakes" you mentioned, you're probably the only one who knows.  I'd venture to say that few drummers who record are fully satisfied with everything that gets released, especially live recordings! 

Finally, I'd suggest just to continue to channel your energy towards improvement, but don't get lost in the minutiae.  You're still making "music" AND you're worshipping.  God knows your heart, and your congregation loves you regardless. 

Todd

[Andy Ziker]

Welcome back to the Cafe, Matthew.

Sorry to hear about your crisis of confidence. Great comments/advice from Todd!

You may want to pick up a new book by Bernie Schallen called Mind Matters. Here is a my amazon.com customer review that explains a little about the book.  http://www.amazon.com/review/R1OSRG7NRZYURD/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1458406997&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=]http://www.amazon.com/review/R1OSRG7NRZYURD/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1458406997&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

This book will really help you out! Good luck!

[Bart Elliott]

Glad you decided to go ahead and join us again, Matthew, rather than waiting.

Here's my review of the book Andy mentioned, Mind Matters, which is the same book I was referring to in my emails to you.

http://www.drummercafe.com/reviews/books/mind-matters-overcoming-common-mental-barriers-in-drumming-a-users-manual-for-the-mind.html

[Matthew Warwick]

Thanks for the warm welcomes back! Yeah I think I might give that book a try in a few weeks. I want to try and post a bit more here about college and also a conversation I had today with someone there that has inspired me quite a bit.

I just got a job at college as I said in the first post here, and it only starts on weekends. The first thing I want to do once I get enough is fill my truck all the way up. I kind of got inspired by friends back in High School and I bought a diesel pickup truck like they did. However, it has a 34 gallon tank and diesel is the priciest fuel over here (unlike it was around the time I bought the truck, haha), so it'll take a bit to afford that. I'll try and get the book, though.

The college I go to is a small Christian university in Rocklin, CA called William Jessup University. I need to get my overall college GPA up by .26 in order to meet the requirements for the teaching program, but since I managed all A's and B's last semester I figure if I push more I can get all A's. Hopefully that'll put me at least at a 3.0 for my overall college GPA.

Anyway, some of you on here may have heard of a Christian recording artist named Lincoln Brewster. He and his band came to my church about 5 years ago, but I found out when I got to Jessup a year ago that his church is only a short drive away (it's in Granite Bay, CA). I found out today that his drummer, Mike Johns, goes to the same school I go to! Small world.

Anyway, he's playing with the choir orchestra starting next year, and he's doing one song for now. I was told about this and I went and talked to him after the choir class got let out. I had to reintroduce myself because we'd only met once, but he was very helpful.

He told me that sometimes gaining a good tempo can be a mundane and boring process of just playing a beat to a metronome for an extended period of time and just getting locked in with the general feel. He also said to turn the metronome down and keep playing after I get an easier hang of it. I like to do this and then turn it back up after a bit to see how precise I've been.

I'm trying to do this now instead of obsessing over playing songs, because those aren't necessarily perfect. When Mike told me the best things to practice for worship music are more basic beats, I brought up AC/DC as an example. Clearly, AC/DC isn't Christian, but it involves very straight forward rock beats that are easy to learn but take time to master. I had trouble finding what tempo their studio recordings were at because the metronome never stayed with them 100% of the time. Mike told me that AC/DC didn't usually record to click tracks in the studio, so I'm guessing I should mostly stick to the metronome and practice pad. I have both of those things in my dorm room, and since I don't have a roommate I can practice whenever I want to.

And Todd, your "good thing" that you listed cracks me up. Especially the word "mathematically". That sounds like a situation I would NOT fit in well with...I'd just overthink it, haha! And thanks for those last couple of sentences. Those were really encouraging. :)

[Big Yummy]

As a drummer, you need to lead, and you need to follow.

Too much of either isn't great.

If you develop perfect, machine-like time and refused to deviate from it, you're too bossy and people won't like playing with you.

If you're too accomodating, and just follow where the other players are going, you're not doing enough to help the band keep time.

So practice perfect time with machines (metronomes and click tracks), practice "flexy bendy" time with people, and find a balance you like.

For me, every time I hear a drummer with pefect, machine like time and no swing or flexibility, I wonder why the band didn't just use a drum machine.  A machine can do a better job of that stuff.

As for "mistakes", I like to take pride in my many "recoveries".  As in, "Woo hoo!  Did you see how I recovered from that disaster?  I'm brilliant!"

[Matthew Warwick]

I understand what you're saying, Big Yummy.

However, my desire isn't to become robotic or absolutely perfect. I just want to get to the point where I can stay in the pocket consistently and naturally.

I think I'm gonna order that book you guys talked about. One of the reviews on amazon.com said that the reviewer was looking through the book and was able to relate to multiple problems it mentioned. Hopefully it can do the same for me.

[Big Yummy]

...sometimes gaining a good tempo can be a mundane and boring process of just playing a beat to a metronome for an extended period of time...

I like to focus on the changes.  If the beat changes between the verse and chorus, for example, I'll play two or four bars of the verse, then the chorus, and repeat that over and over with a metronome. 

My time keeping is never great, but the changes can be truly atrocious if I don't practice them with a metronome.

[Bart Elliott]

Some of these tips may also help you.

Desperately Seeking Motivation

I personally believe that "confidence" can be connected to motivation. If you feel motivated to make something better, to the point that you press on and move towards the goal, you build confidence with each step of the process.

[Larry Rankine]

Great article Bart!

Matt, I'm hardly the person to make recommendations on this topic but I can say that the book/DVD Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner is IMHO a "must read."  It was recommended here at the Cafe by several members whose opinion I value greatly.  It's helped me a lot in the mental aspects of being a drummer and more importantly being a better musician!

[Bill Bachman]

As you strive towards perfection it's really easy to become paranoid, and then you start to second guess yourself, then listen to yourself way too much while playing, etc. Before you know it your mind's all about "me me me" as you're unfortunately trying to prove something to somebody (quite possibly yourself). You end up playing like you're walking on eggshells. At that point it's no fun for you, and if you're not buying it then the audience probably isn't either.

As you may have guessed, I've been there and it's still sometimes a fight to avoid that headspace!

Take the time to train yourself well by practicing smart. Listen back from a 3rd person perspective in order to honestly evaluate your playing and re-program your 1st person perception into what you know truly sounds good from the 3rd person perspective.

When I'm performing in a pressure-cooker situation, I take a second and remind myself to not care what anybody thinks and have fun playing like me. After all, I'll come off as my best if I'm being true to who I am and honestly playing from the heart. It's easier to say that than to do it, but you have to be yourself or everyone will see you as a fraud.

The mental headspace of relaxed confidence is where the magic happens, get your ears on those around you more than yourself and get your analytical side shut down (since you know it will never help you during a performance). It's been said that under pressure we don't rise to the occasion, but that we sink to the level of our training. Practice smart and then have fun sharing the experience joyfully with those around you. 

[Chip Donaho]

It's been said that under pressure we don't rise to the occasion, but that we sink to the level of our training. Practice smart and then have fun sharing the experience joyfully with those around you.

I couldn't agree more!   ;)

[Matthew Warwick]

As you strive towards perfection it's really easy to become paranoid, and then you start to second guess yourself, then listen to yourself way too much while playing, etc. Before you know it your mind's all about "me me me" as you're unfortunately trying to prove something to somebody (quite possibly yourself). You end up playing like you're walking on eggshells. At that point it's no fun for you, and if you're not buying it then the audience probably isn't either.

As you may have guessed, I've been there and it's still sometimes a fight to avoid that headspace!

That's exactly how I feel sometimes (like I'm walking on egg shells and so I'm listening to every single hit)! Don't know why I didn't think of that comparison before.

Well I got that book last week, and I finished reading it this afternoon.

All in all I have mixed feelings about it. On the positive side, there were many things which definitely related to my problems. There was a whole chapter on anxiety while playing and also one on self-esteem. There was also a question and answer chapter at the end which featured one question about why recordings sometimes sound different than they thought we would. Many other things were mentioned

There are some small negatives, though. There were some specifics the book didn't go into that pertained to me (for example, sometimes vocal parts in a song cause me to get nervous). Also, even though there was a question about recordings, the answer was far too brief, I thought. That's probably the thing that disappointed me the most.

The book also featured chapters which didn't really pertain to me. While that isn't a negative, it made about half the book not applicable to my current situation. I know it's a book written for more common worries across many different areas, but I almost wish there was a volume one and volume two to this book, with volume one covering nothing but internal problems while volume two would deal specifically with things like getting along with others in the music business, getting support from others, and things like that.

So, I did get many things out of the book and I'm glad I read it. However, there were some things that I either didn't see it mention (like the vocal thing I mentioned above) or only went into brief detail on (like the recording thing).

I also read that article you put, Bart. That touched on what I felt during 2009 and 2010 when I was worried and/or depressed about other things.

[Hank Gagnon]

you're thinking too much.  over analyzing. get back to basics. don't think, just play!!

[Phillip Whisenant]

Always remember the drums are the backbone to any band on any given song. I think you are trying too hard and in doing this it is harming your playing. Relax. Practice and practice will build confidence on it's own time. Take it day by day. Of course no one is going to come up to you and say "Hey Man your playing sucked today" people are like that. A true friend will tell you that you suck that is if you actually do. Must learn to relax and take charge without even thinking about it. Everyone is following you in a live situation. Then as you know recordings never lie to you. Just slow down, practice a lot and take this day by day and you will get there eventually!!
                                                   Good Luck & God Bless!