Hi everyone,
With the transition to ZOOM video lessons, I am no longer able to write down notes and musical material in the students’ books/binders. Instead, I have created PDF documents for each of you and dropped them into a Google Drive folder. The link to your documents is listed in the What to practice heading under your name below. You should be able to access the documents simply by clicking on the link. Here are your practice assignments for this week:
Will
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice lines 9-11 from the page of comping rhythms: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17pjkCZ1jfMdjwRqFBMaPIG_hKMb3gQGz?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: Go through the same process with these rhythms as you did with the earlier ones. Once you feel comfortable playing these rhythms on the snare drum with the left hand while maintaining the ride cymbal pattern with the right hand, then try moving the left hand part around the drums. Experiment with different patterns between the snare and toms to come up with patterns that you really like.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice playing all the way through to the end of the second chorus of the song, right before the guitar solo section starts: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10YGpSqgr9Z2SExyhXz7k1evG3C0t2VEc?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: Keep working on playing the song together with the recording. Start each practice session by reviewing the notation and making sure you can remember how to play each of the fills correctly and consistently. After that, go over each of the transitions (from intro to verse, or verse to chorus) to make sure that you can make the transitions smoothly. Then, finally, start the recording and play from the beginning to see if you can get all the way to the end of the second chorus. Next week we’ll do the rest of the song.
Aidan
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the problem areas of “Drum Corps on Parade” before the recital and then begin working on “Fool in the Rain” by Led Zeppelin: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yJPRmQn7QZuvnmvhe8ji-CCGmJPGLDZi?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: Isolate the most challenging parts of your recital piece and just focus on those parts before the recital day. You’ve put a lot of hard work into learning this piece and it’s going to be great! After that, check out my step-by-step guide to learning “Fool in the Rain.” It’s important to practice each step separately to make sure that you’re getting the most important parts of the beat first. Don’t worry too much about the ghost notes on the snare drum this week. We’ll work on them next week.
Noah
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice accent patterns #49-51: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Dga1ZBRWaN_Ka4O1G009w-74c4VaZCj7?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: When you go through these accent patterns, first identify which hand will play each accent. Then look at the relationship between each accent and the bass drum pulse (does the accent land on the beat, half way between two beats, or on the “e” or the “a”?). After you have that all figured out, try playing the accent pattern slowly on the snare drum. Then try moving the accents onto the toms.
Nate M.
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Print the sheet music for “Red Barchetta” by Rush and focus on the section starting at letter “E”: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UJYz7hx_AeAM7Std0aj1Y1IyVd-8f86S?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: Practice the 7/4 section slowly until it feels comfortable enough to play faster. Once you get it up to the speed of the song, then practice it together with the recording. After that, start at the beginning of the song and see if you can play everything up to and including this section. Next week we will focus on the remainder of the song.
Nate O.
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Review the ending of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and practice the whole song a couple more times before the recital: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lsS6FvGAobS96Y5mFUDE_7L1HGfAK0_s?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: Great work on learning “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door!” I was really impressed with how well you played it in your lesson this week. You’re going to be great at the recital on Saturday. Just review the two things at the end of the song that we worked on: the one bar where you stop playing before coming back in with a fill, and the very last bar where you play “snare-crash” four times then “snare-tom-tom” before finishing with another crash. If you can work these into your performance on Saturday, it will be even better!