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Giving Lessons - where to start?

Started by bangdums, May 29, 2002, 09:57 AM

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bangdums

A family at my church asked if I would give lessons on drum set to their 14 year old son. He is a beginning drummer who has been playing for about a year. He has been taking lesson from a student in the music college at the state university here in town and he says that she is a little too academic in her approach. He just wants to "learn to play different beats" have fun.

I've been playing drums as a hobby for about 14 years and have never taken or given private lessons. Could you suggest a general progression of skills, etc. to teach and maybe recommend some specific excercises or books that would be helpful? There is so much on the web but its difficult to sift through it all. Thanks for you help in advance and thanks for your site. It's one of the better ones I've come accross.

Bart Elliott

Well ... even though the student feels the lessons from the prior instructor are too academic, it's probably what the student really needs! Most young players want to skip the basics and move right into the "kewl" stuff.

On the other side of the coin, if you don't get the student excited about drumming and not looking forward to learning more ... then they just won't take lessons.

So the key is to find a happy balance. I try to not go overboard with learning from books. If that's all there is to teaching, then anyone can buy a book and learn without an instructor. Many teachers just work out of the book(s) and never really get personal with the student; it becomes a cookie-cutter method of teaching. Also it's not good to just wing-it and have no goals or direction in the instruction.

With that said, I would recommend getting the student involved with play-along materials immediately. Getting them playing some basic grooves will give you access to working on rudiments, sticking exercises, etc.

Rather than go through a long list of materials (again), please check out some of the threads in my  http://www.drummercafe.com/content/category/5/15/19/]5-Minute Lessons . Here you'll find a  http://www.drummercafe.com/content/view/32/19/]list of books  that would be great to work into your instructional routine. In particular, the play-along book/CD (ie. Weckl) and sticking exercises (ie. Stick Control). There's also some stick exercises as well as ways to expand them into useful grooves, fills, etc.

Depending on how much progress the student has made in his/her first year ... assuming they didn't get into playing a lot and more into grip, sticking and rudiment basics ... there's a book called Drum Sessions by Peter O'Gorman that I found to be very useful. This book takes the beginner and gets them playing along with music (tape included) immediately ... breaking it down so they only do the hands (no kick drum) and progresses slowly. For the student that doesn't want to take the academic approach and wants to immediately start playing the full kit ... this might be a good book to look into. There is a Book 1 and Book 2.

Be creative and access your students need(s) based on where they are at. If the student is the type that can not be motivated to practice (80% of the drumming population, so it seems), you'll have to be even more creative ... perhaps just showing them new things each week. It's this reason that I rarely take a beginner, even though I love teaching all ages. My motto is no practice, no lesson.