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:

Damian

Recommended minutes to practice: 5-10 minutes per day

What to practice: Practice playing the beats from your “Rock and Funk” page in 2-bar combinations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jaROP8emrq7yGkV13Mt_Js4NVtEz-sCl?usp=sharing

How to practice it most effectively: Take two beats from the twelve that are listed on the page (any two) and practice playing them together. For example, if you choose numbers 1 and 2, you would play number 1 once, then number 2 once, then number 1 again, then number 2 again, etc. It is important that each beat flow directly into the next and that there is no break in between them. This creates a two-bar phrase. Practice this with different combinations of beats and at different speeds (fast and slow).

Koel

Recommended minutes to practice: 10-15 minutes per day

What to practice: Review page 2 of “Smoke on the Water” and then practice playing it together with page 1: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SCS8WVjfR1OZVlYmt8a1r2LTxo2NJOpN?usp=sharing

How to practice it most effectively: Be careful not to lose any eighth notes in the Chorus on page 2. There are a couple spots that we looked at in your lesson where that was happening. Once the Chorus is secure, the practice playing it together with the 16th-note beat and fill that comes afterward. Once you can play all of that together, then practice playing the drum fill that comes before the Chorus, the one at the end of page 1, and go directly from there into the Chorus.

Jonathan

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: Practice playing the comping rhythms and fills that we have worked on in “So What” by Miles Davis: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GxopIaGPN0UhwG3zk4gQWTnEaDDL7TWP?usp=sharing 

How to practice it most effectively: Focus on keeping steady time on the ride cymbal and hi-hat whenever you play this song. Try experimenting with playing the snare drum on different parts of the beat, especially off-beat notes. Next week we will review the phrases and fills that we worked on this week and also start looking at a new song.