Hi everyone,

Here are your assignments for this week:

Will

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: Keep working on your comping rhythms from the new pages provided and practice playing them along with the jazz backing tracks: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17pjkCZ1jfMdjwRqFBMaPIG_hKMb3gQGz?usp=share_link 

How to practice it most effectively: With the second page of comp examples, you will encounter rhythms that use the middle note of the triplet. Remember that the middle note of the triplet will never play together with the ride cymbal, but the last note of the triplet sometimes does. Take your time figuring out the rhythms on this page and practice them slowly. When you feel like you’re up for it, try playing these new rhythms along with the backing tracks:

100 bpm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VmZwkqi0HU

120 bpm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpTYcnG5WYE

140 bpm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr2rLTQtRPo

Jared

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day

What to practice: Practice up to #8 of the new 16th-note drum beats.

How to practice it most effectively: Take the same approach as last week. Practice the beats slowly at first and be sure to count all the notes to make sure you’re playing the rhythms correctly. With #7 and #8, you have bass drum notes that need to be played at the same time as the left hand on the hi-hat. Listen closely when you play these beats to make sure that your right foot and left hand are playing exactly together when they’re supposed to. Once the beats start to feel comfortable, then try playing them a bit faster.

Noah

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day

What to practice: Practice all of section 1 and the first measure of section 2 from Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock.

How to practice it most effectively: Focus mostly on the fills this week as these are trickiest part of section 1. Be sure that you’re counting when you practice so that you’re not leaving out any notes or adding in anything extra. Once you feel like you can play the fills really consistently, then try practicing the section 1 together with the recording of the song. The drums start in the recording around 0:58. At the end of section 1, practice the transition into the first measure of section 2.

Koel

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day

What to practice: Review your test material for school and also practice Sweet Child O’ Mine on drums.

How to practice it most effectively: With the test material for school, remember these important things: 1) Always identify the rhythms that you need to play as well as the notes. Playing the rhythm correctly is just as important as hitting the right notes. 2) Look at the direction that the notes are moving on the page (up or down) and identify when it changes. Knowing when you’re supposed to be moving up the keyboard and when you’re supposed to be moving down is half the battle in learning to play the right notes. 3) Look for patterns in the music, like when each bar starts one note higher than the previous bar, or when you have the same rhythm repeated several times in a row.

Caroline

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day

What to practice: Review all of the rhythms that we have worked on in your book (the ones that we did in your lesson) and experiment with playing them as drum fills.

How to practice it most effectively: Start coming up with some of your own ideas for drum fills. Take the rhythms from your book and think about how you can creatively move them around the drums. Try incorporating the toms, the cymbals, and the bass drum so that you’re not always starting your fills on the snare drum. Also, think about some of the fills that you really like from the songs you have learned and try to build on some of those ideas. Practice playing your drum fills in combination with a simple drum beat and try not to lose track of the pulse in the middle of the fill.