I began playing drums for rock. Never had formal training (hell, I even played open handed and heel on foot because I never saw closely someone else playing drums) and yes, 99.9% I do it by feel or by ear, learning the melody. I'm trying to revert that 22 years after, though.

I genuinely thought everybody did the same until went to a clinic by Pepi Taveira, an argentinian jazz drummer, where he admitted doing the same - that unlike everyone elde, he didn't kept a count but kept the measure reference by learning the melody - specially on odd time metrics.