Hi everyone,
Here are your practice assignments for this week:
Will
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Practice the two fills from “Ride” by 21 Pilots.
How to practice it most effectively: Focus on counting the main beats (1, 2, 3, 4) while you’re playing through this song. This will help you to feel where the entrance of each fill should be. Also, practice the fills by themselves several times in a row before trying to play them with the recording.
Elliot
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: The cut-time beats that we worked on in your lesson.
How to practice it most effectively: Play each beat slowly at first, being careful to not to leave out any notes or to switch your bass drum and snare drum notes. Once you feel like you can play each beat consistently well, then gradually try to increase your speed.
Alexy
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The rhythms on the snare drum with quarter notes on the bass drum as well as the two new syncopated beats.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice everything slowly to ensure that each note is being played in the right place. Try to hear what the rhythm of the beats sounds like so that you can play the rhythm consistently. Reading the notes off of the page is good when you’re first learning a new beat or rhythm, but eventually you want to be able to forget about what is written on the page and just listen while you play.
Oscar
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The three different triplet fills with each of the two hi-hat foot patterns.
How to practice it most effectively: Take it very slowly at first and be sure to count so that the hi-hat pattern stays consistent. Practice leading with the right hand and with the left hand for each pattern. Careful not to let the triplets turn into a straight 16th-note rhythm. The most important thing is to maintain the evenness of the triplets.
Nate M.
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The note-naming exercise that I gave you for xylophone (this can be done on a piano/keyboard too).
How to practice it most effectively: Practice identifying the note names on the treble clef staff and then finding them on the keyboard. Review what the symbols are for “sharp,” “flat,” and “natural.” Practice finding the sharp or flat version of different notes on the keyboard.
Nate O.
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The shuffle beats that I wrote down in your book as well as the beat from “Dreams” by BSlime.
How to practice it most effectively: Remember that the shuffle beats are based on triplets. The rhythm on the hi-hat should sound like a triplet with the middle note missing: “1 a 2 a 3 a 4 a 1” etc. Practice maintaining this rhythm on the hi-hat while playing different patterns on the bass drum and snare drum. For the beat from “Dreams,” remember to be careful about when to play the hi-hat and when not to. It is an irregular pattern that connects in specific ways with the snare drum and bass drum.