Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that we won’t be having lessons next week. Those of you who responded to Barnaby that you would like to come to my concerto performance next Thursday, I will see you there! Those who can’t make it, I’ll see you at your regular lesson time in two weeks. If you haven’t responded to Barnaby yet, please do so as soon as you can. Thanks!!

Here are your practice assignments for this week:

Will

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day

What to practice: The accent patterns written in your book.

How to practice it most effectively: Same as last week, first practice #s 1-4 for a while until they start to feel comfortable. Then move on and practice #s 5-7. Focus on keeping the volume of the non-accented notes low so that you can hear the rhythm of the accent pattern. Play the quarter-note pulse on the bass drum if you are able to.

Elliot

Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day

What to practice: The 16th-note beat that we started working on this week.

How to practice it most effectively: Just like with everything else that we do, start out practicing this beat very slowly. It’s better to go slow and play it correctly than it is to try to go too fast and have to keep starting and stopping. Focus on keeping the hands alternating (Right, Left, Right, Left, etc.) and play the bass drum only on beats 1 and 3 and the snare only on 2 and 4.

Alexy

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: The “Rock and Funk” beats from the sheet in your folder.

How to practice it most effectively: Try to get your drum kit switched around this week so that you can play the bass drum with your left foot. Since you are left handed, I think this will be a very good change for you. Try to play each of the beats on that sheet at different speeds to exercise the left foot.

Oscar

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: The xylophone part for “The Incredibles.”

How to practice it most effectively: As I mentioned in your lesson, you can read notes (pitches) fairly well, but you need to work on reading rhythms as well. You should be able to identify half notes, quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and eighth notes, and you should be able to count these rhythms out loud. Just getting the notes right isn’t enough if you’re guessing at the rhythms. We’ll work more on this next time, but for now work on counting the rhythms in your music out loud as best you can.

Nate M.

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: The two main drum beats from “Spirit of Radio” and the first two measures of beat #3.

How to practice it most effectively: Work on developing consistency with the two beats you worked on last week. They sound pretty good but you need to be able to play them consistently throughout the song. Take them slow at first and then speed them up. Also, take a look at the first two measures of the new beat. Learn to play it very slowly and we’ll work on it more next week.

Emily

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: The new accent patterns as well as the transitions in the song “In Bloom.”

How to practice it most effectively: Take the accent patterns slow and work on moving the accents around on the toms in different ways. You can also feel free to be creative with this and try to come up with your own accent patterns. With the song, just focus on the transitions between sections and working out some of the fills (they can be whatever you want them to be).

Nate O.

Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day

What to practice: The new beats that we worked on and I wrote in your book.

How to practice it most effectively: Read the beats carefully in your book and count the rhythms out loud before you try to play them. Take the beats slowly and be careful of the places where you have to play the bass drum separately from the hi-hat. These spots require a lot of coordination so you’ll have to practice them slowly.