Stay on the Bus: Why Patience Beats Chasing Trends in Drumming

I spent years trying to become a professional drummer. Not just good—known. Recognised. The kind of player people would talk about.

And you know what that pressure did? It killed my progress.

The moment I let go of needing to "make it"—the moment I stopped measuring every practice session against some imagined professional standard—I started enjoying drumming more, practising more consistently, and ironically, improving faster than I ever had before.

This isn't just my story. It's a pattern I see constantly in my Bristol teaching practice, and it's one of the most important lessons I can share with students and parents alike.

The Problem: Social Media Makes Everything Feel Urgent

Open Instagram. Scroll through YouTube. What do you see?

Drummers switching between jazz, metal, funk, and pop—all in one video. Teens playing paradiddles at 200BPM. "Learn this viral song in 5 minutes!" content everywhere. Algorithmic pressure to do everything, be everywhere, stay relevant.

And suddenly, working on a single rudiment for three weeks feels... boring. Inefficient. Like you're falling behind.

Here's the truth: that feeling is exactly what's holding you back.

The "Stay on the Bus" Principle

There's a concept from the book Four Thousand Weeks that changed how I think about learning. It's called "staying on the bus," and it goes like this:

Imagine you're a photographer in Helsinki. You get on a bus to take photos around the city. For the first part of the journey, every bus follows the same route—making identical stops, covering identical ground. You take your photos. Three years later, you proudly present them to a gallery owner.

But you're dismayed to learn your work looks like knock-offs of photographer Irving Penn's work. His bus had been on the same route as yours.

Annoyed at yourself for wasting three years following someone else's path, you jump off that bus, hail a taxi, return to the bus station, and board a different bus with a different route. A few stops later, the same thing happens: your new work seems derivative too.

Back to the bus station you go.

The pattern keeps repeating: nothing you produce ever gets recognised as truly your own.

What's the solution?

Stay on the bus.

Stay on the freaking bus.

The distinctive work only begins for those who can muster the patience to immerse themselves in the earlier stage—the trial-and-error phase of copying others, learning foundational skills, and accumulating experience. The buses eventually diverge and head to unique destinations. But that only happens if you stay on long enough.

What This Means for Drummers

When I was chasing the idea of becoming a "known" drummer, social media was constantly in the background, making me feel behind.

I'd see someone playing something I could technically already do, and instead of thinking "I can do that too," I'd think "Why am I not at that level yet? Why don't I have that many followers? What am I doing wrong?"

It wasn't that I was jumping between styles constantly. The problem was more insidious: the constant exposure to other people's highlight reels made me feel like my practice wasn't enough, even when I was making genuine progress.

I'd scroll through Instagram or YouTube, see drummers posting incredible clips, and feel this gnawing sense of being behind—despite the fact that I could play most of what I was watching. The comparison wasn't motivating me. It was paralysing me.

The solution wasn't working harder or practising more styles. It was stopping watching those videos entirely.

The moment I stepped away from the constant scroll—the moment I stopped exposing myself to everyone else's curated progress—I could finally focus on what I was interested in without the background noise of comparison.

I leaned into double kick work because I was fascinated by it, not because it would impress anyone. I practised at sustainable tempos and let progress happen gradually. I stopped feeling guilty about days where I didn't practise because I was focused on app development or teaching content.

And ironically? My drumming improved more in the following year than it had in the previous three.

The Trap of "Playing Party Pieces"

Social media rewards party pieces—flashy skills that look impressive in 30-second clips but don't build real musical understanding.

This creates a trap:

You spend your practice time learning viral licks instead of fundamentals. You chase trends instead of developing depth. You jump from style to style instead of mastering one approach thoroughly.

And then you wonder why you're not improving.

Here's what students don't realise: focusing on one aspect at a time generates real progress. Not playing party pieces. Not impressing the algorithm. Not being good at everything.

When I work with students in Bristol, the ones who improve fastest aren't the ones trying to learn every viral song. They're the ones willing to spend three weeks on a single coordination pattern. They're the ones who work through one fill slowly and thoroughly instead of rushing through ten fills sloppily.

They're staying on the bus.

For Parents: What "Staying on the Bus" Looks Like

If your child is working on the same rudiment week after week, that's not wasted time. That's depth.

If they're playing through the same song repeatedly at different tempos, that's not obsessive. That's mastery.

If they're not jumping between styles constantly, that's not lack of ambition. That's patience.

The students who develop real skill are the ones willing to stay with something long enough to understand it deeply—even when it feels repetitive, even when it doesn't look impressive to outsiders, even when social media makes it seem like everyone else is learning faster.

For Students: You Don't Need to Be Good at Everything

If you love metal drumming, lean into that. If you're fascinated by jazz, go deep on it. If you want to master rudiments, commit to that for a year.

You don't need to be a viral drummer, a jazz drummer, a metal drummer, and a funk drummer all at once.

The originality comes from staying on your bus long enough that it diverges from everyone else's route. That's where the distinctive work begins.

But you'll never get there if you keep jumping off every time you see someone else's bus going somewhere that looks more exciting.

The Paradox of Letting Go

Here's the paradox I discovered:

The moment I stopped needing to become a professional drummer, I became a better drummer.

The moment I stopped measuring every practice session against some imagined standard, I started practising more consistently.

The moment I stopped feeling guilty about not practising, I started practising more.

The pressure to "make it" was the thing preventing me from making progress.

This doesn't mean you can't have ambitions. It doesn't mean you shouldn't want to improve. It means you let go of the obsessive need for external validation and focus instead on the intrinsic satisfaction of getting better at something you genuinely care about.

That shift changes everything.

Three Practical Takeaways

1. Pick your bus and stay on it

Choose what genuinely interests you—not what looks impressive on social media—and commit to it for at least six months. Let yourself go deep instead of jumping around.

2. Focus on one thing at a time

Don't try to work on coordination, speed, dynamics, and musical phrasing all in the same practice session. Pick one. Master it. Then move to the next.

3. Let go of needing to be "the best"

Practise because you enjoy the process of getting better, not because you need external validation. The irony is, you'll improve faster when the pressure's off.

The Bottom Line

Real progress doesn't come from chasing trends, impressing algorithms, or trying to be good at everything. It comes from patient, consistent engagement with something you genuinely care about—even when it feels slow, even when it looks boring to outsiders, even when social media makes you feel like you're falling behind.

The buses all follow the same route at first. Everyone's learning the same rudiments, copying the same players, working through the same fundamentals.

But if you stay on long enough—if you resist the urge to jump off every time you see something shinier—your bus will eventually diverge. That's where the distinctive work begins. That's where real originality lives.

But it only happens if you stay on.

So pick your bus. And stay on the freaking bus.

If you're in Bristol and looking for drum lessons that focus on depth over flashy party pieces, get in touch. I work with students who want to develop real understanding, not just collect impressive tricks.