Merry Christmas

Dear All

Just a quick post to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Thank you all for being so great to coach and teach, you make my job so easy and fun!

See you all in 2011 for some more fun and lots more drumming!

My very best wishes to you all

Ax

Flams

Dear All, here is the long awaited (my apologies for not posting up sooner - with the exams I've been tired-up with admin and extra lessons!) Flams exercises around the kit.

Kashmir @ 2.06

You can drop yourself in here - This is from a NY Drum Teacher's website.

Whole Lotta Fun!

Just something to practice!!

Ok, I'm obsessive .... I know, but I've come up with these variation on the Bonham Triplets. If you fancy it have a go!

Bonham again this week!

Firstly, apologies for not posting up the Bonham variations that we covered last week. The Blogspot image launcher isn't working at the moment which means I can post up the sheet for last weeks work. I will print them out and hand them out in the lesson.

This week we'll be looking at KASHMIR, the much-talked about intro to ROCK AND ROLL and WHOLE LOTTA LOVE - have a listen if you can.

See you in class

A

Melodic Polyrhythm Warm-up

Bonham - Part 1

Ok, here's the Bonham triplets fill for you to practice.

Prep - John Bonham

If you have time have a look at this groove - The Bonham Shuffle. This is very similar to the Purdie Shuffle we've looked at which can be found here.

This comes from the Led Zeppelin track "Fool in the Rain".

Double Bass-Drumming Workshop

Firstly ..... Wow! you were all amazingly good playing double bass drums well done! I knew you were all good but ....Wow! Special mentions have to go out to Petes with the feet - Stockbridge and Upton, Auntie Carole and Darren "DB" Bender - Good work fellas!

Ok, here's the sheet on what we covered.

Over the next 2 weeks, we'll be studying the Drumming of the late, great John Bonham of Led Zeppelin

Week 2 - September 2010

Well what do you think of the new look blog? It's better I think, easier to read, wider in format - do drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Ok, so this week we've been looking at playing grooves picking out the 16th notes with our bass drum. We first looked at this groove :-

We played it with our lead hand on the hi hat and then picked out the bass drum beats on the 1, the 'a' of 1 then the 'E' and the 'a' of 3 - Remember the third and fourth bass drum beats are in-between the hi hat beats but make sure that the hi hat beats stay constant.

Then we changed the hi hat patterns, as shown below. 

Remember, all of these exercises are to develop your left hand playing, left hand co-ordination and cross-independence. 

Welcome Back!

A very warm welcome back to everyone having drum lessons this term. I hope you all had a great summer.

As I've said in the introduction, I'm now teaching at the new Shop in Bishops Stortford shop on Mondays. I've added a new introductory section for the new drummers in Stortford - with the relevant links for them.

This week we've been going back over basics to iron-out any bad habits and to get you back into the swing of things.

A walk-through of the Intermediate Warm-up can be found here.

Then, we looked at playing double-stroke rolls - with a single arm movement but playing a double with your hands (played of bounced).

Finally we looked at playing simple 8th note grooves but with your left hand leading on the hi hat.

A list of grooves to work through can be found here.

We then added a couple of extra more 'funky' grooves as below :-

PS. I will be posting up the notes from the last few lessons in July over the next few days - watch this space.

See you next week.

New Video - Rudiments can be fun!

   

"Teach A Man to Fish ....."

Following on from our lessons last week, below is a drum part to the tune that we studied last week. Have a read through and check it against your part.

We will be playing through the whole track in this week's lessons.

14th May 2010

Ok, Well done everyone for getting through the 'new' songs over the last few weeks. I've added them (the real versions) to the Spotify Playlist have a listen and remember that the part is always a guide.

If you have any other suggestions, do comment back and if we get a consensus I'll write the part out and we'll all have a look.

Coming up in the next few weeks will be lessons on Brushes, 'Busking along with a band', Double-Bass drumming and a few more!!

A

Hands and Feet Exercises

Ok, we're back up and running.

The first part of last week's exercise is here below. Work through these exercises slowly remembering to try to 'forget' your feet once they are playing.

Under The Bridge Chart

Under The Bridge Chart

Paradiddles

Hi Guys this is a special post for Timbo, Big DAVE, Lisa, Ian and Jason.

Here is a link to all of the Paradiddle exercises for you plus some video.

BS Paradiddle Posts

Two-handed Grooves

So we're back with a vengeance this week working on some advanced techniques for two-handed grooving.

Using this technique we are playing a 'normal' old faithful-esque groove with our left hand - going from hi hat to snare drum / bass drum with the right foot. This then allows us to add to the groove with our right hand on the bell (cymbal, cow bell, pad, trigger etc).

Play, again, through the exercise below playing the bottom line with your left hand then putting the top lines on the bell of the ride cymbal with your right hand.

Drum n Bass for Mig

Week 5 1st - 4th February 2010

This week we started to work through a whole piece of music. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday's classes started to look through 'Mountains' by Biffy Clyro - which can be found on our Spotify Playlist here .

Wednesday's class (Big Dave's posse) started to work through a Rockschool Grade 3 piece called 'Download' - which in many ways is very similar.

Both tunes have passages where you will have to move from playing an 8th note groove into a quarter note groove. Now remember YOU ARE NOT SLOWING DOWN! The tempo is staying the same but when you're playing quarter notes you are putting the 'back beat' on 3 rather than 2 and 4.

As a reminder ....

Week 3/4 : Part 2 "Playing the Odds"

Odd Time Signatures

Normal or 'common' time is referred to as 4/4, meaning there are 4 quarter notes (crotchets) in a bar. This is sometimes referred to as 'common time' and is notated by a C at the beginning of the music.

We started to look at music that has an 'Odd" Time Signature - meaning an amount, other than 4, of pulses in a bar.

The first one we looked at was in 5/4 - which means there are 5 quarter notes in a bar. Play through the groove below remembering to count 1-2-3-4-5.

We then looked at a basic 'Rock-Waltz' in 3/4. Again have a go at the groove below, counting 1-2-3, 1-2-3 etc

Having looked at grooves that move in an odd number of quarter notes we then moved on to 'odd' 8th note patterns.

A time signature of 7/8 means there are 7 8th notes in a bar. The count for this can be either simply 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 etc or 1-and-2-and-3-and-4 (remember ... NO 'and' of 4).

Play through the groove below and find out which method of counting works for you.

Week 3/4 : Part 1 (more to follow)

 Hello, and firstly apologies for not getting the last lesson's bits up on the blog. I've had a busy week coordinating the Academy's entries for the Rockschool exams at the end of March. We've got over 120 candidates entered this time and just shows how the Academy is going from strength to strength.

Anyone who is new to Drum Lessons at Playsomething should have a look here for the warm up and here for the list of 8th note grooves to practice.

Then, following on from this week's lesson, have a look through Quarter Note Grooves here and the 16th Note Grooves here .

Week 2 : 11th -14th January 2010

This week we looked at playing the hi hats and in particular the use of open hi hat as an effect within a groove and as an accent effect in fills.

A quick bit of history - thanks to Iain H. Foot operated cymbals were originally 'Low Hats' - two cymbals that were played with the foot, very simply crashing together. These then developed into 'Hi Hats' that could be played with the sticks as an integral part of the drum kit. This is an image from an old Premier catalogue showing a pair of 'Low Hats'.

We began by playing an 'open' Hi Hat with a basic 8th Note groove pattern. Play through the exercises below at your own pace. Remember to focus not only on which beat the open hi hat is on but also where the foot will close the hi hat (usually the next beat that you will play).

Then we looked a series of exercises using a basic 16th note pattern on the snare drum, using the open hi hat as an accent.

Week 1 : 4th - 8th January 2010

Welcome back!

This week we looked at a 'Rudiment Refresher' exercise to get you back into the swing of things.

Work through the exercises below to a 'click' or a metronome. Start at 100bpm, play it through a couple of times then push the tempo up very slightly - 101, 103, 105 etc

Another good way of practicing this is with recorded music. Most 'dance-ie' music around the 120bpm mark.