Musically Speaking! Practice Sets ...there's practice and there's rehearsal ...one makes the other one go better! Throughout this section, I'll talk about my practice routine & the impact of a recent shoulder injury on that routine. I'll also include here my actual practice sets, of which I'm hoping some of you may find them in common with your own. Far be it from me to not have an opinion, so I'll also share my philosophy about practice as it relates to rehearsal and the dynamics of a band. In case you didn't pick up on it by now, I am a big fan of practice. Lot's of practice. In fact, nothing irritates me more than coming into a planned rehearsal and finding that someone didn't do their homework. Now, don't get me wrong... I'm not talking about note for note perfect. I'm not even talking about someone getting stuck on part of a song that they just keep having trouble with. I'm talking about that blatant laziness or whatever you want to call it, when someone has obviously not put 5 worthwhile minutes into learning a song. Can you tell it irritates the shit out of me or what? You gotta at least look like you tried, for cryin out loud :-) I think one of the reasons it has me hot right now, is I recently jammed with several musicians. I was pretty excited since I am trying to put this new project together. Man, was I in for a let down! Without ragging on anyone in particular, it was depressing. Who learned one song but not the other, who learned half of each song, who learned barely enough to stumble through anything. It was ugly. Again, I'm far from perfect, but when I come into a rehearsal, I come prepared enough to at least get through all of the target songs. If you want to really get into my head on this whole topic, surf the upcoming section My Thoughts On... Practice.		Practical Practice Ideas for Drummers - The next time you replace your headphones, spring for a wireless set. They're only a couple bucks more than a good wired set and you won't feel them tugging all the time since there is no wire to hang up on things. I've seen them as low as $49.95 for low end Advent to $499 for a top of the line Sony. Surprisingly, Sennheiser offers several models under $200. You can take this idea a step further and purchase an extra rechargeable battery. With one always in the charger, you won't get stuck waiting for a recharge. Still struggling with an old boom box cassette player or other old fashioned stereo rig for your practice? Consider purchasing one of the new boom boxes, most of which sport multiple CD changers, as well as a remote control. The digital sound quality of the CD is a nice step up from cassettes for picking apart songs, and with writable and re-writable CD's now as cheap as cassettes, there is no reason not to learn to burn. The multi CD changer feature means no more flipping tapes! Load as many practice sets as you can fit CD's. And, if your new box comes with a remote control, that's another bonus. No more leaning and reaching to repeat song segments. I purchased a small mountable shelf unit from Gibralter to hold my remote control, song list, drum keys and of course a coffee!