Ella- This week, focus on the transitional sections in Breezeblocks. They’re getting really solid now! Now, try doing them all at one tempo with the metronome. You’ll notice that the first beat might be a bit slower than is comfortable, but that will set you up to be able to play the last one without trouble. Start wit metronome on the eighth note (maybe around 140) then switch it to the quarter note when you get to 180 (so switch to 90).
Jonah- This week, I want you to practice improvising. Start by playing some beats, some fills, and even just anything at all! Then turn on the songs on your drum kit, or listen to music you like and try to play along in time with the song. Make sure you play a little bit every day so you can keep coming up with cool new things!
Noah- Now that we are finished with our lessons, I want you to practice some improvising! Play some beats, fills, or anything at all. Then, turn on some music you like and try to play along in time. It doesn’t have to be exactly what the drummer in the song does, but try to stay in time with what you hear and be musical. In addition, keep practicing Stick Control in the beginning of your practice, it is already helping so much. Here is another page of similar material (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-2-8mNg6sCOqWsyqtdUcHhJBk3Ygxncf/view?usp=sharing). Jonny is also familiar with the book and can help you continue on with technique. Lastly, try to get all of Take On Me learned, with a goal tempo around 110. It has been great working with you, I hope you have a great time with Jonny and a great summer!
Sylvie- Now that we have gone over most of it, try to finish Get Used To It at a comfortable tempo. Once it is all learned, try to speed it up and play along with the song. It has been great working with you this year, thanks a lot! Please always keep improvising and finding new sounds!!
Koel- This week, work on crafting interesting fills based on the beats. Each beat has something unique about it, so I want you to identify something that you want to highlight, and feature that in the fill. The best example is beat number 11, which has a sn are drum note on the ‘a’ of 3. Try to put a special sound on the ‘a’ of 3 in the fill as well to tie it all together. Try doing this with each beat on the page, focusing on 3 or 4 of them per day.
Sampson- Here is the link top Astronomia (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pV–Ysl8R1CU-uQI4_ZgGKbnbcubs7JL/view?usp=sharing) so sorry about forgetting the link last week!! Now tht we’ve covered most of the material, try to read through the whole thing and get to the end at a comfortable tempo. We will talk about how to speed it up and soon you will be playing along with the song in real time!
For those of you that do not have a make up lesson next week, thanks for a great semester!! It has been wonderful to work with all of you and I hope you all have a great summer. If you are continuing lessons with Jonny over the summer, I’ll make sure he is up to date on what we’ve been working on. He is a good friend of mine and an excellent drummer, I know you’ll enjoy being with him! For everyone else, have fun practicing and I’ll see you next week for our last lesson of the school year!
Pino