This introduction tells you what we expect from you whilst you take drum lessons at school and hopefully it will help you become a great musician.
1 - Lesson Times
It is important that you know your lesson time each week. Check at the beginning of school on the day of your lesson. Please allow at least five minutes to get from your classroom to the drum lesson and try to be on time – if you are late by five minutes to every lesson then you will have missed over two hours worth of lessons in a year!
If you can’t make a lesson because of a trip, exam etc please try and tell me about it. We will try and rearrange your lesson times but can only do this if we know about your problems early enough. Preferably we need to know about any problems a week in advance or at the very least, early on in the morning on the day you have a problem attending.
2 - Sticks and Books
You need:
- A pair of drumsticks - Drumsticks come in many different sizes. We would recommend 7a or 7b to start with for people with small hands. Some people prefer slightly bigger sticks and use 5a or 5b’s (available from most music shops for approx £5 - £10).
- Rockschool Grade _______ (available from most music shops, Ebay or Musicroom.com).
- A folder to keep your book and sheet music in.
- If you also study orchestral percussion you will need xylophone and timpani sticks plus the relevant music books.
- Earplugs – if you have a kit at home, then a pair of earplugs is also essential to protect your hearing. You can buy these at any drum shop or from me for £4 a pair.
- A notebook for recording what you need to practice
You may also like to consider getting hold of a stick bag to store and carry your sticks in, a practice pad and a metronome to help you keep time when practicing.
You need to bring your book, sheet music and sticks to each drum lesson. If you forget then it will slow your progress down.
It would also be a help to have internet access as a lot of free material will be used in lessons (see 6 below).
3 - Practice
Regular practice is the only way that you can improve as a drummer. By practice we mean that you go over the techniques and pieces we have learnt in lessons, concentrate on the stuff you find hard and repeat it lots until you find it easier to do. Often you will have to slow things down at first – don’t worry, everyone has to do this.
As a beginner, you should be aiming to practice for 10 minutes every day and that should roughly increase by 10 minutes for every year you have been learning. The “every day” thing is important – much better than doing an hour’s worth of practice on the day before your next drum lesson. At each drum lesson you will be given work to practice. We cannot do the work for you, it is up to you to work regularly by yourself at home.
After a short while, you will have covered a number of different aspects;
- Rudiments – these are patterns used by drummers – start each practice repeating several of these patterns from your book (at least 10 times each a day)
- Pieces and new grooves – (grooves are what we call rhythms used on the kit)
- Improvisation – making music up by yourself
- Listening and copying – try playing along to your favourite CD
When you practice, try getting into a routine of doing all of these four elements above in one session. Use the rudiments as a warm up (like a footballer warms up before a match). Then work on your pieces – practice the sections that you find difficult first. Once you are comfortable with the music then try and run the whole piece. Then have a go at making your own music up – called improvisation. Finally, try and listen to recordings of your favourite bands and have a go at playing along. At the end of each practice session, try and warm down by using the rudiments again.
4 – How do I practice if I do not have a kit?
If you do not have a kit then you can use your lap, or practice by setting out some cushions/pillows and using these. If the school allows, you may also practice on the school kit – but you need to ask permission first and treat the kit as though it were your own. They cost a lot of money to repair or replace so please look after the school kits.
Also, once you get used to reading, you will be able to practice by just looking at a piece of music, and trying to hear it inside your head. This type of practice is just as important as actually physically hitting the drums.
We generally find that students who do have a kit at home learn a lot faster. So if you feel that you are progressing well, please start to think about getting a drum kit for home practice.
5 – Where can I buy a kit?
We are lucky in that we have two good drum shops in the area (Poole Percussion Hamworthy Poole near “Toys R Us” and Classic Drums in Boscombe Bournemouth) if you want to buy a brand new kit or any other gear.
Kits come in different shapes and sizes. There are normally two standard size of kit – fusion (smaller) or rock (slightly larger). Both are perfectly okay. Kits also vary on price. Generally as a beginner you would want to start off with a “student” kit, priced from £250 - £400. This should come with stands, cymbals and a stool (higher priced kits often come as “shell packs” – i.e. you are buying just the drums, not the stands, cymbals, pedals or stool). Second hand kits are also widely available. Free Ads (the yellow paper) or Ebay have quite a few for sale. The advantage of buying a used kit is you will get more for your money and can often find a good mid-range kit complete with cymbals, stool, pedals and sometimes lots more. If buying 2nd hand, look out for the following makes: Premier, Pearl, Yamaha, Mapex, Tama, Pacific or Sonor. We have seen good useable second hand kits sell for less than £100 although expect to pay around £250 for a decent make.
If you have space or noise problems at home there are also several options that will help. Pads can be put on a normal kit to silence it (sometimes called “Sound-Off” Pads). An electronic kit is not only much smaller than a regular model, but can also be used with headphones. Whilst you can also get hold of special kits that are flat and can store away underneath a bed (Flats) or an entire practice kit with pads made of rubber that again is silent and can be folded away easily.
6 – Internet learning
I have lots of worksheets and songs available free on this blog.
Click on Drum Charts. Then simply select the worksheet/song that is appropriate to your standard and print it off. To download these onto your computer, you will need a tiny plug-in called Scorch. Just follow the on on-line instructions after selecting your worksheet.
7 – Playing in school groups and ensembles
Your school has lots of groups and ensembles that you can join and play with. We find that students who join ensembles learn a lot lot faster. Once you get confident about reading and playing in time, then we would recommend you joining one of the groups at your school.
It may be daunting at first, but stick with it – this is what playing an instrument is all about!
Playing in groups is also important for…..
8 – GCSE Music
Once you get to Year 9, you should start thinking about your options and whether you would like to take GCSE Music. For the course, amongst other things you will need to be able to perform solo pieces, play in a group and compose music. We can help you with this in your drum lessons.
9 – Orchestral Percussion
We also encourage you to study orchestral percussion in your lessons – this will mainly involve timpani and xylophone. If you are a drummer, then this gives you an added dimension to your playing. It also opens up many more opportunities for you to play in different groups and ensembles.
10 – Recommended Listening – further study
Listening is the most important thing we can do as musicians. Below we have listed a few great drummers and bands that you need to be familiar with. We have included mainly older drummers and bands, as you should be familiar with some of the more current artists.
YouTube, Spotify, your local library (or the Music Library in Bournemouth) are good places to get hold of some of the recordings listed below.
Don’t be afraid to experiment – listen to music that you don’t normally listen to – you might be surprised at how good it is!
Jazz
Louis Bellson – countless bands, Art Blakey - Jazz Messengers - Free For All, Jimmy Cobb - Miles Davis - Kind of Blue, Elvin Jones - John Coltrane - A Love Supreme, Gene Krupa - Benny Goodman - Sing Sing Sing, Joe Morello - Dave Brubeck - Take Five & Blue Rondo a la Turk, Buddy Rich - Buddy Rich Big Band, Max Roach
Rock
Ginger Baker - Cream, John Bonham - Led Zeppelin, Terry Bozzio - Frank Zappa, Bill Bruford – Yes & King Crimson, Vinnie Colaiuta – various bands, Stewart Copeland - Police, Steve Gadd - Steely Dan, Dave Grohl – Nirvana & Foo Fighters, Manu Katche’ - Peter Gabriel, Mitch Mitchell - Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon - The Who, Ian Paice - Deep Purple, Carl Palmer - Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Neil Peart – Rush, Jeff Porcaro – Toto, Phil Rudd (among others) ACDC, Danny Seraphine – Chicago, Chad Smith - Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Ringo Starr - The Beatles, Robert Wyatt - Soft Machine
Latin
Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Mario Bauza, Celia Cruz, Chico O'Farrill, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico Grupo, Niche Machito, Noro Morales, Oscar D'Leon, Santana
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