Lessons
For more lessons please visit my Youtube Teaching Page
Drum Teaching Philosophy:
When the student has a desire to learn, and the teacher has a desire to teach, a positive outcome will be undeniable. As a teacher it is always my intention to inspire and motivate the student. I try to work with the student’s interests and particular ways of learning. It is important for me to understand that no two students are alike, and therefore each lesson has to be customized to the particular situation. That being said, I do teach certain necessities to all of my students so that they will become well rounded musicians. Some of these things include:
developing a strong groove
sound awareness and possibilities
developing precision
singing basic melodies and rhythms
relaxation and focus
reading and writing music
playing with a metronome
learning different styles
dynamic levels
drum tuning and setup options
understanding form
chart writing
rudiments
**If you would like drum lessons please feel free to contact me anytime and we can work out the details. My only requirements are that you have a genuine interest in music, a willingness to learn, and have your own instrument to practice on. Please checkout additional video lessons on my Youtube channel to get a better feel for my teaching style.**
Drum Teaching Background:
I taught my first couple of students in 1998 when I was 17 years old and quickly realized that being a good drummer and being a good drum teacher are two very different things. Never the less, I felt that in order to be a serious drum practitioner I needed to be capable of passing on the knowledge, and so I began my path as a drum teacher.
I maintained a small private student base throughout college, but my real experience started in 2003 when I moved to Portland Oregon. In Portland I worked at a couple of music schools, Bolton Music Studio and Ethos Music Center. At Bolton I taught private lessons to ten or twenty kids and teenagers throughout the week. I did this for about three years and gained a lot of valuable experience in the private lesson scenario.
Ethos was (and still is) a non-profit music school geared towards underprivileged youth. For Ethos I taught private lessons as well, but, I also taught large group percussion classes for many of the public schools that did not have music programs due to state budget cuts. Most of the time I taught these classes using 5 gallon plastic buckets that were donated to us by the Tazo Tea Company. With these buckets we would play rhythms using sticks or hands, and work on group playing concepts. Sometimes it would be a group of fifteen or so 6 year-olds, other times it would be thirty or more Junior-High aged kids. These were of course challenging situations, but I can honestly say that a good portion of these kids really learned something and had a good time doing it, and for that it was worth the effort.
During my time in New York City I maintained a small private lesson base and also worked for Groove Inc. Groove was (and still is) a school specializing in early childhood music classes for kids ages 6 weeks to 6 years. In this setting I accompanied and assisted the lead teacher in playing songs from David Weinstone’s “Music For Aardvarks” repertoire. The kids (and babies) absolutely loved it, and it gave me a chance to work on my percussion skills, overall a great experience.
In 2010 I started writing a drum instructional book that deals mainly with conceptual ideas. Things like: how to groove, sound awareness and possibilities, relaxation, and developing creativity. Learning technique and vocabulary is important, but I feel that even beginners can grasp some of the concepts that the experienced drummers have taken years to figure out. I look forward to working more with this book and teaching these methods to my current and future students.
Schools I’ve taught for:
Ethos Music Center, Bolton Music Studio, Groove Inc.
People I have studied with:
Graham Lear, Leroy Clouden, Peter Retzlaff, Pat Petrillo, Reinhardt Melz, Kelly Dunn, Tim Gilmore, Eric Hughes, Brad Flickinger, Frank Katz, Adriano Santos, Frank Gravis, Carlton Jackson.