I know it’s a tired old cliche but… Jim Chapins Co-ordinated Independance is simply a “must have” book for anyone even half serious about their drumming.”But it’s a Jazz book & I’m a rock drummer” I hear you say.It really doesn’t matter what style you play this book will help you. The most common problem [...]
How did you go with Part 1 of Turnarounds? Great exercise, eh? What we are going to do in this lesson is extend what we learnt in part 1 by adding our feet. Each variation builds upon the one before it and you should really make sure you’ve put a little time into part 1 [...]
Here is a simple drum lesson you can use to improve your co-ordination and independence. Have a look at the exercise below. It is a simple 16th note roll starting at the snare drum and going around the toms to the floor tom then coming back around the toms to finish at the snare again. [...]
So you’ve made the decision to have music lessons. Great. Now how do you make sure that you get the absolute best value and the most progress from your lessons? here are a few tips to help.
First and foremost, ask yourself the question “What do I want out of this?” “Why am I coming to [...]
I’ve decided to add a few quick tips here from time to time when I’m short on time to write full articles.
Tip #1. Use a set of bigger, heavier sticks to do some of your practice. When playing I normally use 5A sized sticks but during practice I use 2B sticks which are heavier. It’s [...]
Here is a short, basic practice routine you can use to improve your hand speed and endurance. In it’s shortest form it only takes about 18 minutes making it a great routine to use when you are short of time or as a warm up to a longer practice session. I try to do a [...]
Many great articles have been written on the subject of practice. This is my tilt on practice as it’s something I get asked about quite frequently.
I’m one of those musicians that other musicians often love to hate. Why? because I’m what has been termed as “a natural musician”. It is a real term. Look it [...]
Talking to students about scales puts about as big an enthusiastic smile on their faces as the prospect of going to the dentist for root canal therapy. In other words, enthusiasm levels = zero.
I must confess that I too find them as boring as watching paint dry, but this doesn’t negate their importance in [...]
At what point would you say that you “knew” a piece of music or an exercise? Unfortunately for most students it is when they have played it correctly…once. I used to hear it alot. “I already know this, can’t we go on to something new?” It is frustrating because most times you know [...]
As a music teacher one of the most common questions I got was “How much do I need to practice?” Well, the simple answer to that is “How good would you like to be?”
I say it’s the simple answer because there are many factors involved but usually it all comes back to putting in the [...]