We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hank (chia-hung) Lin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hank (Chia-Hung), appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

At 16, I picked up drumsticks for the first time. With the knowledge and some basic understanding of music from playing piano, I picked up drums pretty fast. I was self-taught for a while, then my parents decided to let me go to study with a teacher. I fell in love with the drums immediately. I love the feeling of swinging the sticks, hitting the drums, and letting all my energy out while playing it. And the more I play and practice, the more I’m sure this is the ONE, my favorite instrument, which later I decided to have a career out of.

There are many ways to speed things up, but not all are good. But there’s one that I wish I had started doing way earlier, which is to plan out what you want to work on and what practice you would need to achieve that. It’s like making plans for practicing, instead of just sitting down and playing your favorite songs over and over again, you sit down and practice with a goal in your mind, and work your way towards it. This way, you will avoid a lot of wasted time just messing around with the kit. Not saying messing around the kit is bad, but I do think practice with a goad is essential for a musician to grow.

Patience is a super important skill when it comes to music. It takes time to make progress, no matter what instruments you play. You might not see progress in a day, a week, or even a month. But just be patient, keep practicing and the result will come one day. Sometimes, you just need to wait for the “Click”. Once it clicks, everything works out and your body will know what to do with the instruments.

Over time, I realized that the more you practice doesn’t mean the more you will improve. There’s always a limit for practicing. My body gets tired when I pass the limit, and sometimes, I also get burnt out and injured. Burnout and injuries are common issues that bother musicians, including me. But with enough rest and not over-practicing, it can help you stay away from those two problems.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Hey everyone, I’m Hank (Chia-Hung) Lin. I’m a drummer and multi-instrumentalist from Taiwan based in LA. I play with the band Dead Marble, NetherOak, and Joshua Gomez, as well as artists such as Sky Wu, Eric Moo, Mimi Cho, Johnson Lee, and Yu Yar.
I started playing piano when I was five years old, drums when I was 16, and guitar one year later. I fell in love with the drums immediately, and it was around the same time I started playing drums I started listening to rock and metal music. I love how much energy is in the music, and especially for metal, I love how those drums made the songs so aggressive and groovy. So Bands like Slipknot, Lamb of God, Arch Enemy, In Flames, Thy Art is Murder, and Trivium significantly influenced me. I started working on my double-kick technique, which became one of my main specialties in my playing.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

This might sound hilarious, but I’m gonna go with Metronome. It’s not like I don’t know it exist, it’s just I didn’t use it much in my first two or three years of drumming. Later, I started using it, which significantly improved my playing and my timing, totally a game changer for me. Timing is always important as a musician, especially in modern days, we have a high chance to play with backing tracks, which means we will be required to play with click/metronome. Having good timing also keeps a band tight together, and the music will sound much more cohesive. So, if you’re a musician and don’t have a habit of practicing with the click, give it a try!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Music to me is like a language, a tool to communicate, to express yourself. One of my goals is to inspire and resonate with people with my music and share it around the world.
I write a lot, and I put my own feelings into the songs to express myself. Hopefully, the message in the songs can resonate with the people who feel the same way as me. I also want to tour the world and share the joy of music with this world. I am very grateful for my family, with their support, I’m able to do what I love, to create music, and on my way to my goal!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hanklindrums/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hanklindrums
• Other: Dead Marble: https://www.deadmarble.com

Image Credits

All pictures were taken by Orelha