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: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Work on the new accent pattern exercises that I have provided here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=17pjkCZ1jfMdjwRqFBMaPIG_hKMb3gQGz
How to practice it most effectively: Practice #45-47. Take them slowly at first and be sure that you can play them at the same time as the foot pattern that we’ve always used. Work on playing them on the snare drum, then move them around on the toms. You can also practice playing them in combination with one another (especially #46 and 47). The most important thing is that you learn to feel the difference between the accents that land on the beat and the ones that land off the beat.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice playing all of page 1 and 2 of “Smoke On The Water” as well as the new fills from verse 2 on page 3: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10YGpSqgr9Z2SExyhXz7k1evG3C0t2VEc
How to practice it most effectively: Work on playing through this whole section of the song without stopping. Start by reviewing the fills and the other transition points in the song. Once you feel confident about these, then try playing all the way through. After that, go back and review all the sections that you had trouble with before trying to play the whole thing again. Also, take a close look at the new fills in verse 2 at the top of page three. Be sure that you can count the rhythms out loud before you try to play them.
Aidan
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the whole first page of “Drum Corps on Parade” as well as your rudiments: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yJPRmQn7QZuvnmvhe8ji-CCGmJPGLDZi
How to practice it most effectively: Start at the bottom of page one and focus on the stuff that you are least familiar with first. Play the bottom line a few times in a row, and then add on the section that comes before that. Once you can play that much comfortably, then add on an earlier section and try playing them together. Keep doing this, adding one section at a time, working backwards until you get back to the top of the page. Then see if you can play the whole thing top to bottom.
Noah
Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the guitar solo and verse 3 from “Smoke on the Water”: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Dga1ZBRWaN_Ka4O1G009w-74c4VaZCj7?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: Focus on practicing the fills in the guitar solo slowly. This will help you to develop greater accuracy and consistency. Once you feel really comfortable playing them at a slow speed, then try to gradually play them faster. If you do this a little bit at a time while always focussing on accuracy and consistency, then before long you’ll be able to play them fast with no trouble. Take the same approach with the fills in verse 3.
Nate M.
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: Keep working on the beats and fills from “Red Barchetta” by Rush: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UJYz7hx_AeAM7Std0aj1Y1IyVd-8f86S?usp=sharing
How to practice it most effectively: This week we made it up to about 2:30 in the recording. Practice playing this much of the song on your own first and then together with the song. If you feel confident about doing this much, then listen to the next section of the song and see if you can learn some more of it. We’ll start there next week.
Nate O.
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the full Intro, Verse, and Chorus of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Guns ’n’ Roses: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lsS6FvGAobS96Y5mFUDE_7L1HGfAK0_s
How to practice it most effectively: Great work playing this section of the song with the recording this week! It’s starting to sound really good. Just focus on hearing the parts of the song where you have to play the drum fills. If you can hear when these parts are coming up, it will be easier to play the fills at the right time. One thing that might help is listening for how the rhythms you play line up with the words that the singer is singing. Next week we’ll add a little bit more onto the song.