Drummers are probably the ones that are never told to improve their singing at any stage in their musical life. Which is weird. The benefits that are there to reap in being multi-disciplinary are far outweighed by not having them.
Drummers can definitely improve their singing by practicing. The end goal of singing is what defines whether it’s a good fit for them or not. Learning to sing can improve everything from understanding melody to composing better.
There really are no downsides to having this additional ability in your skill set, as you’ll learn as you reach through the article.
Drumming Won’t Improve Your Singing, Directly
I must admit, I love misdirection that leads to proper answers afterward. The reality isn’t that far off from this subheading either.
Knowing how to play the drums is going to help in some ways and not at all in others. But, what it’ll leave you with is one thing for sure. You will be able to hold your own, rhythmically.
The question then we need to ask is, if learning to play the drums is going to help me to improve my rhythm then how do we turn that into a boon for us while we sing?
The answers that lie ahead are not based on some casual experiments I did. I had to work decently hard on my rhythm but I chose a path that fulfilled my needs and wants of what I wanted the music to be in my life rather than something that I HAD to do.
That made all the difference.
What I Did to Learn Drums
Okay, I don’t actually know how to play the drums, not the physical ones. But, I have composed a lot for them. To the point that I don’t use pre-written drums anymore at all. I compose every part of the drums for my own songs. The fun factor of that thing is otherworldly.
I write for my drums in my DAW. Which for me is the best solution I could find. It allows me not to buy the actual drums whilst allowing me to have them in my songs. The virtual aspect saves me tons of physical real estate in my room and money while I enjoy really good-sounding drums for a fraction of a price of a decent drum set.
Hard to beat that value when you’re a composer.
The point of this story is simple, it’s to provide context.
How Did It Improve My Singing?
Knowing that my drums are being played on time is the single best asset I could ask of it. It allowed me to sing over my tracks in time. Which frankly, I needed to improve on.
People might say that’s cheating but I don’t think so. If my rhythm is better with drums rather than a metronome, yeah, I need to work on my sense of time but the fact remains that at that point in my life and to this day, I prefer a drummer (whether virtual or real) to hold time for me than for me to rely on a ticking sound.
Rhythm Is a Plague
Ever heard the joke about the singer who couldn’t sing on time? Well, I’ve lived it. Happened in my Hindustani music class. The teacher called me up and told me to sing. I wasn’t a huge fan of singing Hindustani music and as a result, I hadn’t practiced anything for it.
I go up in front of the whole class, he asks me to sing and I do.
“A singer who can’t sing on pitch is fine, a singer who can’t sing in time….”
He didn’t finish the sentence but I knew what he was getting at. I don’t agree with it completely because at that time I didn’t know what I do now. I can safely say that both are important. I also believe that singing on pitch is far easier than it is developing time. At least for me. But, if I struggled with it then I assume others did too.
I have a reason to believe that I suffered the way I did in front of my class. Singing allows your o externalize the sounds you’re singing. This means it’s more vocal (get it?) in the act itself, so singers are able to pick up matching pitch far more easily because they are internalizing sounds all the time.
However, the same doesn’t scale with rhythm. The mind can get too focused on singing the bright notes that it forgets that it has to sing in time with the rhythm.
I can’t say I have met a lot of singers who aren’t masters of time but I have to this, it’s necessary for singers to have time and pitch.
Learning How to Sing
The other half of the equation is your actual ability to sing. Well, I have written an article where I talk about why online courses are probably the best thing you invest in if you could like to learn to sing.
You see, if you focus solely on drumming then that’s what you’ll get good at but, you need to be good at singing to make the most of your drumming as well.
Here’s this page that I recommend to everybody because it allows you to see all the courses that I think are valid to have. Initially, I found it a bit daunting and boring, to be honest, eventually when the results started to kick in and I started to see some results. I nodded my head realizing how stupid I was to dismiss what an online course could teach me.
Of course, that was years ago and now wherever you go on this website, you’ll see me harking on and on about why it’s better to have at least one online course in your library.
Other Skills to Acquire
Drumming and singing can’t just exist in a vacuum. There are tons of other things that you can do to have an even better musical understanding.
Arranging, producing, composing, and recording yourself. They’re all interrelated. I hope you find time and some way to understand how each of them plays off of each other and how fun being a musician can be.