Confidence and Intentionality: Tasty Drumming Ingredients

I have this theory that a terrible drummer will sound sorta good if he plays with confidence and intentionality. So, imagine a what those traits would do for a good drummer! I believe some drummers, commonly newer ones, sound better than they actually are because they play like they mean it. I also believe that what separates good drummers from great drummers is the level of confidence and intentionality with which they play. So let's talk about it!

I do think there's a difference between confidence and intentionality. When you think, "Yeah, I meant to hit my snare there," that's intentionality. When you add, "Take it or leave it," to that statement, that's confidence. It's obviously hard to distinguish them because they go hand in hand. My definition of intentionality is planning what you're going to play or having the knowledge of what you're going to do before you do it. Whereas, confidence is more of an attitude that what you're playing, or going to play, is working.

When I look back on my experiences playing drums, I can think of times when I was playing with intentionality but not confidence and times when I was playing with confidence but not intentionality. Of course, I can think of times when I played with both, and those instances felt much better to me than any of the ones lacking one of those traits. (I can think of plenty of times when I played without intentionality and confidence, but I don't like to talk about those times.)

So how do you get those traits?

Well, being intentional is pretty easy. You just have to learn the song and learn your part. I talk more about how to do that in my post called Super Strong Starting Song Stages. It's just a matter of thinking before you play. If you can think of what's coming up next in the song as you play, then you've got this one down. If you don't think about that as you play, try it out! See what happens! See what the difference feels like. I can tell you that lot of people I play with value the consistency.

Confidence on the other hand, is a little harder to come by. It takes experience and a lot of listening. The more you play, the more you'll know what works and what doesn't work. I'd say the same goes for listening. Context is another important factor in determining something like that. Context can be instrumentation on the stage, type of song, genre of music, room size, and a whole bunch of other things. If you want experience, then you have to play, even if you think you're not good enough, because at the end of the day, someone who has played the drums before will sound better than someone who hasn't. They're going to have that experience where they can recall "this worked here, so let's try that again." In contrast, someone who's never played can't have that same experience.