Learning drums

[RH92]

...set your metronome to 140, since it's fast (but not too fast) and it's a pretty recognizable tempo.

Actually, 140 is relatively fast tempo. The most common tempos are 100-120, but also up to 160 is fairly common in popular music.

Playing in slow tempos is much more harder... It tests your ability to place notes accurately in time, while fast tempos are mainly muscle exercises. When you can play something well in slow tempo you are more likely to play it fast well too.

I guess he is new to music in general. So the fast bleeping of metronome will cause him trouble to recognize what to hear. And to know what to hear is really important. In slower tempo your brain is less stressed by the unknown so you are more able to focus on how off the beat you are. In fast tempo it is harder to understand if you rush or drag... When I started I was told to practise basic rhythmic values (Eight notes, Sixteen notes, Triplets...) in various tempos ranging from 50 up to 100. Later I was told to try even 40 and, of course, tempos over 100 BPM.

[Thebigcheif]

I've been thinking about learning drums too. One of my friends has the electronic drum kit for Rock Band and he's pretty good. Any drummers have an opinion on getting the Rock Band/Guitar Hero drum kit for beginners?

I played rock band drums for about two years before moving on to try real drums and I was unable to convince the teacher I hired that I had never touched a set before. It is the only instrument in those games that works that way in any regard and obviously some people will be able to transfer the skill better than others. As a side note the guitar hero set is much less helpful for this specific purpose because of the layout. This is because, despite the guitar hero set having cymbals on it, the layout for the rock band set is much more "transferable" to a real kit. For rock band, red is almost always the snare (you'll hear when it isn't which usually occurs if the high hats are so fast that you need both hands to play the part) yellow is high hats, blue is ride, and green is the crash with some exceptions of course and obviously fills make them switch to the toms that they would correspond with but when it doesn't follow that formula it's usually pretty easy to tell. I wouldn't recommend it over a professional teacher but it will help with separating your limbs which as others have mentioned is really important.