Musician's Institute instructor Donny Gruendler has put together an extremely useful video series with Vic Firth. Honestly, I have not found a more productive and efficient set of exercises anywhere.
http://vicfirth.com/education/drumset/gruendler2.html
Rather than giving you a bunch of complicated grooves and licks to mimic, Gruendler shows you effective ways to develop the usability of the grooves you can already play by improving your timing and developing effective techniques for musical phrasing during fills. On top of this, Gruendler includes play-along tracks you can practice with.
While many drummers might be frustrated by the tedious simplicity of these exercises and bored with such a conservative approach to fills, the audience and band will really appreciate the feel that these techniques create. Really, Gruendler is doing us drummers a huge favor: Now that we have so many educational materials at our disposal, the trick is to apply the techniques that the music demands perfectly, and these exercises teach us how to do that. Most drummers are surprised to realize that their bands really don't care about fast fills, complex grooves, or crazy solos; instead, all they're asking for is groove!
Ironically, taking this step backward brings a drummer from the "beginner" level to the "intermediate" level, that is, playing simple grooves really, really well instead of playing harder beats poorly. "Advanced" drummers actually play simply most of the time, but have a larger vocabulary of more complex grooves and fills to select from. However, they always maintain musicality as their highest priority, and, usually, that means playing fairly simply.
This set of exercises will take you from "beginner" to "intermediate" in a matter of weeks. Try it out!!!
