Hi everyone,
Here are your assignments for this week:
Will
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice playing Tom Sawyer from the beginning of the last line on page 2 to the end of page 3.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice this section slowly. Don’t worry about speed but rather make sure that the timing of each bar is correct, especially the bars that have drum fills in them. Look carefully at the rhythms to remind yourself of how things go. See if you can go all the way through this section without stopping. If there are particular spots where you consistently need to stop or pause, work on those spots individually.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Finish working on “Black Dog” this week by tightening up the transitions and playing all the way through the song.
How to practice it most effectively: Start each practice session with a run-through of the whole song. Take note about which spots gave you trouble. Then, go back and work on just those spots. Practice them slowly, without the song, and repeat them several time in a row to make sure you’ve got them. Then, finish each practice session with another run-through.
Jared
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Keep working on the accent patterns and practice playing them as drum fills.
How to practice it most effectively: Review each accent pattern by playing it first on the snare drum and then on the toms. After that, practice playing each accent pattern as a drum fill by playing 2 bars of a regular drum beat and then the accent pattern on the toms twice before going back to the drum beat. If you want, you can also try playing a combination of two accent patterns (back-to-back) in the same way with a drum beat.
Noah
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the jazz ride pattern and foot patterns as well as the four snare rhythms.
How to practice it most effectively: First practice playing the ride pattern together with each of the two foot patterns. Focus on playing the accents on the ride cymbal together with the hi-hat foot. Also, be sure to keep the bass drum light. After you feel comfortable with each foot pattern, then try adding the snare rhythms. Do these one at a time and be sure to count to make sure the rhythm is consistent.
Koel
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Review the rhythms we worked on in your lesson this week and practice playing them as drum fills: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SCS8WVjfR1OZVlYmt8a1r2LTxo2NJOpN?usp=share_link
How to practice it most effectively: Play each rhythm on the snare drum while keeping a steady pulse on the bass drum. Be careful not to mix up the two rhythms which combine eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Once you have a good handle on each of the rhythms, then practice playing them as drum fills. This can be done by playing two or three measures of a simple drum beat and then playing the rhythm around the drums before going back to the beat.
Caroline
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: Review “When September Ends” and focus on staying in time with the recording of the song.
How to practice it most effectively: Great work on this song this week! You are playing it really well! Take one more week to practice it and see if you can really lock in with the recording of the song so that you are not speeding up and getting ahead of the music. Also, be careful not to rush the drum fill that happens a few times throughout the song.