Hi everyone,

I will be away next week and you will have a substitute drum teacher. His name is Michael – He is very friendly and I have told him about what each of you are working on. Here are your practice assignments for this week:

Will

Practice playing through all the parts of the song that we have learned so far (Intro, Verse, and Chorus). Play each section a few times by yourself, then put on the recording and see if you can play along. Focus especially on the transitions between the different parts of the song. This is usually the hardest part.

Oscar

Keep working on the xylophone part for the Super Mario Brothers theme song. Be very deliberate with your stickings (rights and lefts) and make sure to do it the same every time. This way your brain will develop a memory of what each hand has to do to play the song. If you do it differently every time, then your brain can’t remember it.

Isaac

Practice the rhythm exercises that we worked on this week. Focus on keeping a steady pulse with the bass drum. Then add in the snare part over top of that. Be sure that the bass drum and snare drum are being played together at the right spots in the rhythm. These exercises are about coordination, so getting the bass drum and snare drum to play together is important.

Alexy

Keep practicing Back In Black this week and focus especially on the guitar solo section of the song. Listen very carefully to the recording and try not to get behind what you are hearing. You should always be able to hear where beat 1 is in each bar of the music. Try your best to connect with beat 1 and maintain a steady speed throughout the bar.