Jack

For a long time we built beats around 7 beats as Jack is obsessed with the idea of 6 7 and somehow was very effective in keeping him actively counting while playing. Today we tried adding more beats and now making beats up to 9 beats, which is similar to our usual drumbeat, a eight beat cycle and a crash in the next bar to mark a new phrase. Jack was able to remember the beat and play it in repetition. Great progress. We will build upon that next class.

Nova

Blink Gone: today we focused on writing the rest of the drum score. Tried out two new patterns that could go with the song before we enter chorus. Practise the guitar solo more regularly on the xylophone so we can put together the song as soon as possible. Even just 10 minutes a day will make the difference.

Adam

Adam is making huge progress within his first few classes. Demonstrate strong self discipline perfecting 1a and 1b, and when showed 3a, a substantially harder beat, showed resilience as we work through the beat layer by layer. We are now also perfecting the Back in Black lick, which Adam is closer and closer to nailing it. Just got to remember every small detail of pattern in bar 6, how many times the snare into hihat/kick combination repeats, and entering the next bar with a crash hit, and practising slow so every small detail is contained. Our goal next class is to play through bar 3-6 and hopefully with the music.

Santino

We managed to play through the exam passage. A great example of practise being crucial to progress being made. Section B is a little more difficult as it requires attention to sticking, meaning how you arrange the order of which hand plays before the next. Try practising through section B and we will do sort of a mock for both brothers next class.

Nicolas

Since Nicolas is done with his exam passage, I notated the song Golden Brown for him last class, and this class Hedwig’s theme from Harry Potter, and here I tried to encourage active score reading, something that Nicolas has tried to avoid through memorisation. We will continue working on that, as this is something that takes time to build through habit. We can often seek tools with learning music in blocks so we don’t lose track with where we are on the music as well as where we are on the instrument. Believe it or not, composer often write repeating material, and as soon as we can identify those patterns, it is wayyyy easier to learn something. Also introduced the concept of mixed meter. Will continue working on the song next class.

Jonah

Jonah did a great job practising through the guitar solo this week and showed substantial improvement in focusing through online classes. He did a great job reading till the end. Bar 93 and bar 101 are two challenging licks that Jonah has now mastered, and the task now is the connect everything together. Our goal is to play the entire page 3 through and through next week and hopefully start a new song next week.