Hi everyone,
Here are your assignments for this week:
Will
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice playing all the way through Tom Sawyer at a comfortable speed.
How to practice it most effectively: Start by reviewing the newest material from page 3. Make sure you can play through page 3 without stopping. Then, look at sections from the other pages that may need review. Once you feel ready, try to practice through large sections of the song. You don’t have to always start at the very beginning. You can start in different places in order to focus on certain sections. This is recommended so that you’re not over-practicing the first page and under-practicing the other pages.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice improvising drum fills, just like we were doing in your lesson.
How to practice it most effectively: Start by picking a rhythm. This rhythm can be whatever you want it to be, but it should ideally fill one whole bar (four beats). Play the rhythm first on the snare drum while counting it out loud in order to make sure it fits within four beats. Then, once you’ve settled on a rhythm, practice moving it around the drums in different ways. Remember to incorporate the cymbals (not just the drums) and don’t always start the rhythm on the snare drum. Once you have experimented with different ways of moving it around the drums, then play the rhythm in combination with a drum beat of your choice. Play the beat three times in a row and then play the fill. Try to play the fill a different way each time.
Caroline
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the triplet rhythms that we worked on in your lesson.
How to practice it most effectively: Remember that the notes within a triplet all need to be the same length. You can count them as “1 & a 2 & a …” or as “ 1 trip let 2 trip let ….” Practice playing them slowly at first and keep a steady quarter note pulse on the bass drum. Then, once they start to feel comfortable, try playing them at faster speeds.