My approach to practising the drums has always been to try and find something I can't do, break it down to its simplest form and work on that. I figure that as long as you're working on things you can't do then you're getting better.
In my early twenties the "things I can't do" would consist of playing 19 over 7, or strange bass drum ostinatos. Later I began to realise that, not only are these things not particularly useful in music but there were countless things that were pretty basic that I couldn't do.
So, my focus moved to finding the simplest things that I struggled with. I'd find something, work on it for a while, create exercises to work on it and write them down. The problem was that I'd move on before I really nailed it, assuming that I'd come back to it later because I'd written it down. All that happened was that it got added to a pile of books and other exercises that I never got round to working with.
Starting today I've decided to keep a practise book and my aim is to find a new thing each practise session and work with it until I've nailed it. The session can include various methods of breaking it down to help me work on it, but whatever it is will be my focus until I'm happy that I have it under my belt. Hopefully this will accelerate my learning. We'll see....
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