Josh
We continued working on Numb today. The 16th note bass drum note in bar 2 is what tricks Josh the most. I encourage him to continue zooming in to smaller chunks, practising the coordination slow, before trying to play the full bar. Look forward to introduce more grooves from the tune to him in coming lesson.
Aleksander
We started When I Come Around today. Aleksander was fast to pick up the song today and we even had a chance to play it with the song today at roughly 60% speed. We read through until the end of first page. I told Alex the best tip for how to phrase the groove is listening to the guitar riff here. Play the two bar grouping and phrase towards the first beat of every second bar. Try to work till bar 26 by next class.
Zico
We continued on Fly as Me. Zico is now playing the groove way smoother and better. Watch out for the fill at 19, again practise the coordination slow before you try to play at a faster speed. We have now moved on to the Bridge section. Try to get a grasp of the groove by taking out the hi-hat right now. Aim to phrase the bar, rather than a groove that goes beat to beat. Then add in the hihat to practise the coordination.
Noah
We started with a play through this class. The 32nd note lick at first still posed as a challenge, but was made possible when I talked to Noah about how to use relaxation as a tool to play something fast like that. Eventually he was able to play it at speed. Very good work. However I would like to do more technique work with Noah starting next week, making sure while being able to do flashy things, we are doing it efficiently with good technique. Will start a new song next week.
Finn
We continued with DARE this class, and Finn is pretty much mastering the main groove now. I introduced a new groove from the song to Finn which is written on the handout. Give that some practise this week and we will start a new song next week. Perhaps we can try a song from the new Gorillaz album?
Mateo
We revisited Your Love and Mateo did a good job doing a play through despite having not played it in a long time. I will just say, rather than just read through the score, recognise patterns in the song, how many times each pattern is being repeated, and how the song is made up by sections, so you are not lost. We began playing some grooves from Labios Compartidos. I notated a two bar groove for Mateo to work through this week. If it ever gets confusing, strip out the hihat and just learn the drums first.
Henry
We went on with working on the Enter Sandman intro beat. We spent a good amout of time working out the coordination to include the bass drum into the beat. Keep practising that and we will introduce variations to that pattern next class, and try play a chunk of the song with the music.
Jared
We continued working on Master of Puppets. We worked through old material and although Jared was able to play the patterns, I would like to see it practised more so we can drive up the speed soon. We also visited the 4/4 to 3/4 gear shift, much better sense now. We went into pre chorus as well as the chorus today, and this is a section where I would like him to understand the pattern through listening to the song. The 16th notes are quite fast, but don’t play it out of proportion fast. Chorus is a really interesting section where it follows the traditional 4 bar phrase of most rock music, but with a twist, where the second bar is a 2/4 bar. Listen to the song to get a good idea of how it goes.
Koel
We started on Master of Puppets this week as Koel wanted more experience playing rock tunes. He was fast to pick up a lot of the mix meter nuance of the song. Will just like him to count more carefully and subdivide carefully, making sure 16th notes are faster than 8th notes in proportion. I have sent Koel all the pages, and will like him to try reading through the guitar solo section that is timed a 104 bpm. It is a slower section, but not easier. Listen to the song to get a grasp of how the ornaments should be played. Get as much material read and we will review them next week.