Drum Students Go Wild!

This is more of a human interest story, and it is a great opportunity for us to share a story about some of our students about their year in lessons.

At the start of the year, Laura, one of our drum teachers took a benchmark of a drum stroke pattern from each of her students called a paradiddle (named for the way that the stroke sounds).  The paradiddle is a great asymmetrical drumming stroke that challenges, and builds coordination in students.  Marking their progress by seeing what speed they can arrive at over the course of a year is great fun.  There is a video about paradiddles at the end of this post.

Today, at the make-up day, we got the final numbers in!  Everyone made significant gains in this area – which means that everyone’s coordination, and technical proficiency was greatly improved.  Not sure about what the speed markings really mean?  Check out this online metronome to get a sense of the speed changes for yourself!

So here are the results from the Fall 2011 to June 2012:

Emmet 185, now 215
Charlotte 130, now 145
Clementine 160, now 205
Noah 56, now 100
Daniel 223, now 240
Gil 188, now 215
Carlito 150, now 205