About Drum Practice and Nervous Drum Lessons:
A friend of mine has a son who is an aspiring drummer. He’s a very cool 12 year old kid, primarily self taught, and he has a school band performance coming up. His band will be playing a couple of cool songs. One is “Holiday” by Green Day and next up is Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
I volunteered to help get him ready for the gig. After all I’ve been playing for 100 years, who better than me?
Well, welcome to the show… yeah, I’ve been playing a long time but I have not taught a drum lesson in a few years or practiced, and I mean really practiced, in ages.
OK, yes, I play a lot of gigs, I warm up, I play-along w/ tracks (of course) but I remember practicing for hours and hours every day when I first started playing and every hour , every day I learned that much more and got that much better. It was never a chore, no one ever had to say “hey… go practice”. I’d just sit there and play until I couldn’t play anymore. It was completely and totally awesome!!!
So now I have the chance to pass that enthusiasm on. To sit with a young drummer and tear apart a song and try to instill good habits and break bad ones. To try to inspire passion and make it fun. To explain the how’s, what’s, why’s, & where’s without getting complicated or melodramatic. To be a good teacher.
The kid shows up and is at least as nervous as I am. After all this was his first drum lesson.
I soon found out that he can play a beat.. he’s got a pretty good sense of time.. he’s a good listener and we started slowly digging into “Holiday”
Listening, and then listening some more… this is fun!
Ya gotta love Tre Cool man, he’s playing some nice stuff …. wait a minute… great guitar riffs!… cool bass line, smart lyrics, really good band… great song!
Cool. Let’s think about the feel…a very cool rockin shuffle thing…
Let’s work on the intro…. Let’s count the number of measures…
Let’s figure out when the drums come in…. Let’s count the bars until the first verse starts.
Let’s dig into the drum part…. pick up notes….How hard is he playing i.e. how intense? Hi hats? open or closed. Ride or Crash? Bass drum pattern, Floor tom pattern… Snare? 2 & 4 .. hum what else?
Grace notes, Dynamics i.e. how loud or soft do we get ?
What ‘s the form or the arrangement? How many verses until the chorus? Any solos? Bridge ? Breakdowns?
Whoa… Confused? OK, let’s write a chart or lead sheet or road map, crib notes, score, it doesn’t matter what you call it as long as it helps you memorize the song.. this is all part of drum practice.
So we moved on to the kit for a first stab at playing along. You know what, he played.
What I learned was there are a few things to try to correct. Posture, Seating position, and Grip were the first obvious fixes.
We got the seat happening, both feet on the pedals nice and even and balanced. (adjusted a few times during the course of the lesson) Next, grip, here I am knowing a little about Matched and Traditional and French and American and the Moeller technique… and unsure of what to say.
We worked on matched.. we worked on the fulcrum, we worked on down , stroke, tap we talked about bounce and then he played again. Better.
He played again and we talked about fills and groove and accents. He played again. Better still.
We side stepped the song a few times to work on getting to know the kit… coordination… left hand lead… metronome drum practice…
He hung in there and I tried to stay concise.
Yadda yadda yadda, three hours later, he had played through the song a bunch of times and was sweating and smiling and ready for the next lesson.
Me, I learned a bunch & had a blast, and I love to teach.
Have fun and play well.
-Spence