Lucas
Recommended Practice Time: 15-30mins
What to practice: Great job with the Countdown exercise this week Lucas. This week I want you to start looking through Lesson 1 out of Reading, Rudiments, and Rock Drumming by Joel Rothman. Its a book we will be using quite a bit so it may be a good idea to buy it.
How to practice effectively: If you recognize how to count through the reading section great, clap it with your hands and then try to play it on the snare drum. Ask a parent to help you out with the lesson as well so you don’t get your hands confused. Next week we will keep working on Highway to Hell.
Super fun playing with you today Lucas!
Ella
Recommended Practice Time: 30mins
What to practice: This week focus on getting through all of Violent Sun. Here is the transcription and here is the form chart.
How to practice effectively: Great job with this song so far, you’ve got a really good handle on it. The next step is getting all of the transitions for the sections. Keep in mind those listening cues like “lunatic” in the verse and “I’m too old to be crying” in the pre-chorus. As you get faster be sure to relax your shoulders and lower the stick heights. Here is a video of me playing the chorus for audio/visual reference and here is a video of the drummer Michael Spearman playing the song.
And here is some fun listening if you’re interested:
Imogen Heap, Speak for Yourself
Muse, Black Holes and Revelations
Good job this week, looking forward to putting the whole song together!
Jonah
Recommended practice time: 30mins
What to practice: Next week Jonah be prepared to play through the Lesson 8 reading and fills, we will be talking about dynamics and how to move the fills around the drums in different ways!
How to practice effectively: Practice through the reading a few times and pay attention to the crescendo and diminuendo, we are going to learn more about dynamics next week. And get really comfortable with the fill patterns in Lesson 8, we will be working out different ways to play them.
Good work today Jonah, the reading was really good!
Samson
Recommended practice time: 30mins
What to practice: Next week Samson, I want you to play through Lesson 6. And be sure to find a way to fix your bass drum pedal, either by putting something next to it to stop it from moving or getting one of your parents to help disattach the wooden block from the pole.
How to practice effectively: Work through all parts of the lesson and next week we will also start working on Patrick Beatbox.
Good work with Mario Beatbox, I think you got a lot better at keeping with the song vs. Crab Rave so keep it up!
Sylvie
Missed you this week Syvie, keep up the good work at school!
Recommended practice time: 30mins
What to practice: This week Sylvie I want you to focus on getting comfortable with Beat B in the pre-chorus of Starlight as well as Beat C so that you can try and work through the whole song. Here are the transcriptions of the beats. And here is a form chart of the song.
How to practice effectively: Just go slowly through the beat and read it exactly how you would any other beat, once you get the hang of it its pretty simple! Then once you feel comfortable with all of the different sections try playing through the whole song and we can focus on transitions next week.
Great to see your progress!
Paulina
Recommended practice time: 30mins
What to practice: Work on the coordination exercise every day. Work through Lesson 1 and Lesson 2.
How to practice effectively: For the coordination exercise, continue isolating the patterns that give you difficulty. Repeat them, memorize them, engrain those patterns so that playing them is second nature. For the Lessons I want you to clap and count the reading exercises and then once you feel comfortable with that try them on the drum looking for good strokes that start and stop at the top and good timing. We’re going to be using this book quite a bit so its not a bad idea for a purchase.
Check out this album this week:
And if you have time, this is a good movie: