Internet Radio...A Modern Drumming Practice Tool.

When I was a younger drummer we didn't have iPods, iPhones, or even computers small enough to set-up next to our kits. We had Sony Walkmans and a little later on CD's.  While these mediums were great to utilize in a practice session they had their drawbacks. Most importantly you were stuck to the single artist on the cassette or disc. If you wanted to change up your routine you had to waste time changing discs or worse yet make a mix tape before you began hitting the drums.

To counter this problem I would play along with FM radio. This allowed me to practice to a variety of artists without having to change out CD's or cassettes after every song. Jamming to the radio had some great advantages. First it allowed you to practice along with a multitude of artists and second it always kept you "on your toes" because you had little time to prepare for the next song in cue. For me this proved beneficial because it trained me to handle the many pick-up situations I would eventually encounter during my drumming career.

Thanks to the Internet and streaming services today's drummers have a radio on steroids to accomplish this same task.

I currently use Slacker Radio in the same fashion that I used the FM dial so many years ago. But Slacker has a number of benefits over traditional radio. First users can select a number of genres to listen to, or if you are a musician jam along with. These genres include country, jazz, hip-hop, rock, classic rock, hard rock, R&B, and even Christian.  Each of these genres has a number of sub-genres that allow you to dive deeper into a particular style. For example under the jazz heading you can choose classic jazz, modern jazz, smooth jazz, and vocal jazz, among many other sub-styles.  And all of these stations remain in radio format so you can stay on your toes as you move from artist to artist.

With such a deep selection of stations the drummer can really focus their practice routine on a particular style or a multitude of genres.  On some days I move from Slacker's modern country station, to classic R&B, and finally their classic jazz channel.  This has really helped me to stay on my game, find new artists, and develop my playing repertoire in each style.

Slacker isn't the only streaming service available. Available radio based stations include Pandora,  iHeart Radio, and Last.FM. There are also a number of streaming services such as Spotify, MOG, and Grooveshark, among many others that allow you to listen to virtually any artist of your choice instantly. Many like MOG allow you to listen to customized play lists that match the artist of your choice with similar acts. So if you like Hendrix you can listen to a station with Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Jeff Beck thrown in the mix.

All of these Internet streaming companies can be enjoyed via a web browser, or through one of their apps, which allow you to enjoy them on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Android device. And if you opt for their premium services you can even enjoy their music offline. This allows the drummer to have a pocket full of musical genres and artist to jam along with no matter where they are in the world.

Happy drumming!