Getting Started

I've come to realize there's a slight problem when you want to learn how to play the drums - you have to have access to a drum set. Now this may seem pretty obvious, but the drums aren't like many other instruments. If you're learning to play the guitar, you can pretty easily just carry it around with you. You can play acoustic when you don't want to wake the neighbors. Keyboards are pretty similar in that regard. Drums are just obnoxiously large and loud - or as drummers would say, awesomely large and loud.

So the up and coming drummer has a few options-

1) You can get a real drum kit of your own. 

Probably something cheap; you don't want to invest too much money until you know that drumming is something you want to stick with (no pun intended). Problem: this requires you to not only have space for a drum kit, but also a sound barrier between you and your neighbors. I live in an apartment, so this option is out.

1-a) Buy a drum set and play / store it somewhere else. If you're in a band, this can work. You can play it in your bass player's garage or some kind of a practice studio. For someone like me who's just starting...not really a good option.

2) Buy an electronic kit. 

There are some pretty good ones out there, but most of the ones that I've seen are pretty expensive. For someone on a limited budget (like me, and let's be fair, 99% of all aspiring musicians), this doesn't really work.

3) Play somebody else's drum set. This is awesome if you have friends that are musicians. One of my coworkers, Erica, plays bass for a couple bands. One of her bands by the name of Ducksicle practices in her basement. What this means is that the vast majority of the time, there is an unused drum set in her basement. If you're anything like me (cheap), your first instinct is - "hey, can I play your drums when you're not?"

4) Practice at your local college / music school.  This has pros and cons.  Pros: Don't have to own your own equipment, teachers are available if you need help.  Cons: It's like leasing or renting anything - you pay money to use somebody else's equipment and don't end up owning anything at the end of it.  If I didn't have a drum set available to me, this is probably the route I would take (depending on how expensive time/lessons were).

5) If none of these work, you're kinda screwed. You can (and should) buy a practice pad, but this isn't a substitute for being able to play on a real kit.  Make some friends (this can be hard for a drummer), buy a house (hey, it's a buyer's market), do anything you have to do to be able to play on a real kit (ok, not anything).

So I followed my own advice and went with option #3.  It looks like I am going to get a chance to play a real drum set after all.  The problem is, I don't know any songs.  I mean sure, I've played In Bloom and Dani California in Rock Band so many times that I just about have the drum chart memorized, but that's not quite the same.  I actually have to learn songs so that I can play them without the notes scrolling down a screen in front of me.  This is uncharted territory (pun intended) .  

Learning songs

I've asked a few musicians that I know how they go about learning new songs. Not songs they wrote, but doing covers of pre-existing songs. Some good advice I got was to get a trial version of Guitar Pro (GP) and then try and find the GP files of your songs on Ultimate Guitar. It turns out that a lot of these GP files have the charts for the entire band, not just the guitar parts.  You'll often find songs with the drum parts included.  The problem here is that when the trial runs out, you either have to purchase the full version ($60) or give up on this method.  What I did was download a few GP files, open a song in GP on my laptop and play along with the song on Rock Band freestyle mode (insert your drum set / electronic kit / practice pad here instead of RB if you so choose).

So now I'm starting to learn songs, and pretty soon I'll have a chance to play them.  Things are looking up!