Hi everyone! Great work today, it was nice to you all again. I’ll be filling in for Jonny next week too, so we get to do it all over again! Here is what I’d like for you to work on until then.

Aidan– Minues: 30
What to practice: Bossa nova beat, Jazz patterns with kick drum displaced to last part of tripley (like we did in the lesson)
How to practice: With the bossa nova, do it very very slow, almost note by note. Then over the week try to speed it up in small increments. Soon enough you won’t even have to think about it. If you still have trouble, try playing only half of it, then the other half, then joining them together. The jazz beats were fine today, just keep at them so the coordination gets more comfortable and natural.

Will– Minutes: 30
What to practice: Paradise beat with fills thrown in occasionally, open hi-hat beats with hi hat only on offbeat like we did towards the end today.
How to practice: Practice Paradise beat with a metronome and throw in fills to break up the monotony. Make sure the fills are in time and the beat is right in time when you get back into it. Play the open hi-hat beats slowly until they become comfortable, then speed them up. If you feel confident enough with them, start occasionally putting in short fills with those too.

Elliot– Minutes: 30
What to practice: Say it Ain’t So
How to practice: Do the beat very very slow, almost note by note. Then over the week try to speed it up in small increments. Soon enough you won’t even have to think about it. If you still have trouble, try playing only half of it, then the other half, then joining them together.

Oscar– Minutes: 45
What to practice: Tom Sawyer, single hand speed
How to practice: Make sure the Tom Sawyer licks are comfortable. They sounded fine today, but always worth a check up. For speed, I think you could really benefit from an exercise called “stone killers” where you basically just do a bunch of single strokes. Set up a metronome at a comfortable tempo (slightly pushing in speed) and play 16th notes like this: RRRR LLLL RRRR LLLL
then RRRRRR LLLLLL RRRRRR LLLLLL
then RRRRRRRR LLLLLLLL RRRRRRRR LLLLLLLL
and so on until you’re switching hands about every 30 seconds.
If that didn’t make any sense, watch this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPSX6TQucK8

Nathan– Minutes: 45
What to practice: Take the Money and Run
How to practice: Work on playing through the beats and fills perfectly in time. Do this with a metronome, and with the track. Finish the song for next week, learning all the fills by ear. Feel free to write them down, as that will make memorizing them much easier. Also feel free to improvise in the spaces that the drummer fills, but as an exercise I still want you to learn what he does exactly.

Nate– Minutes: 30
What to practice: June 23 beat variation, September 15 beat variation
How to practice: Work on the two beats from these dates in your book. First the original, then the ones I wrote out today. Do the beats very very slow, almost note by note. Then over the week try to speed it up in small increments. Soon enough you won’t even have to think about it. If you still have trouble, try playing only half of it, then the other half, then joining them together.

I look forward to see you all again next week. In the meantime, stay warm and enjoy your practice time!!
Pino