Hand Technique:

Hone your technique by developing a variety of muscle movements catered to the drumset. We will focus on various techniques to help develop cleaner, more accurate, and faster hands.

Developing your fulcrum/pivot point

German Grip

French Grip
Exploiting Rebound/ Gladstone/Free Stroke Technique

Understanding the ‘Gears’ (fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, shoulder)

Finger Technique and exercises

Double Strokes

Moeller Technique

Push-Pull

Foot Technique:

Loosen your foot by practicing both heel down and heel up and using the constant release technique, developed by legendary drum guru Freddy Gruber,

Heel Down

Heel Up

Doubles

Constant Release (used by Freddy gruber, Jojo Mayer, Bruce Becker etc)
Slide Technique

Rudiments:

Practicing rudiments to improve drum vocabulary.

Single Stroke Rolls

Double Stroke Rolls including 5,7,9,10,11,13 stroke rolls

Paradiddle Family

(Single, Double, Triple Paradiddles, Paradiddlediddles, Paradiddle Variations and Combinations and more)

Flam Family

(Single Flams, Flam Accents, Flamacue, Swiss Triplets, Flam Paraddidle, Flam Combinations)

Drags, Ruffs & Ratamacues

(single, double drags, ruffs and ruff combination, single, double, triple ratamacues)

Working on basic, intermediate and advanced rudimental warmups using Tommy Igoes’ Great Hands for a Lifetime DVD.

Playing Styles:

We’ll explore playing various different styles of music and learn grooves and songs in each style. We’ll understand what sets them apart and how to ‘access’ each of the following genres of music:

Progressive

Rock

Pop

Blues & Shuffle

Funk

Jazz

Afro-Cuban (Basic Grooves)

Odd Times:

We’ll use the spoken percussion art of Konnakol to demystify odd time signatures. Students will not only learn how to groove in odd times but will learn the basic vocabulary of Konnakol as well. We will use Konnakol to navigate through various different odd time signatures and odd time sticking’s.

Grooves in 5/4, 7/4, 9/4

Fills in 5/4 and 7/4 using sticking’s in 5 and 7

Combinations leading to grooves in 13, 17, and beyond

Learning how to play combinations of odd times within any section of the song

Polyrhythms, Poly-meters and Metric Modulation

Learn polyrhythmic and polymetric patterns (including the difference between the two) and metric modulation and understand how to create grooves with them.

3 over 4 | 4 over 3

4 over 5 | 5 over 4

Examples of how to use and groove in polymeters including 7 against 4, 5 against 4 etc

Metric Modulation from 16^th notes to 8^th note triplets

Fill Vocabulary:

Don’t be random when you go for a fill! Enhance your fill vocabulary and mean what you play when you move from your hats to your toms.

Single Stoke Fills

Using Rudiments to create fills

Exploring Rests within fills

Using Triplets

Using Sextuplets

Linear Fills

Using Odd Groupings of 3, 5 and 7

Working on Time & Feel:

While all of the above will help us work on time and feel on our kit, we will use specific exercises on and off the kit to improve our time and feel.

Improve Internal Time (No flamming between limbs)

Improve time playing to a click

Control the rushing and dragging when playing to click

Using Konnakol and off the kit exercises to improve time

Understanding how to Practice:

The most important tip I can provide to students is how to set and make the best use of their practice time through disciplined and consistent practice. This can lead to an accelerated pace in one’s development and can take you beyond the ‘plateau’s’ that all artistes inevitably experience.

Learn your Gear:

Understanding your gear is one of the most essential parts of becoming a solid drummer. In this section we’ll learn:

About Bass Drum Spring Tension and how to manipulate it

Stick sizes and what fits you best

Different stick types

At what heights and distance to place your gear for most effective playing and practice

Throne height and developing good posture

Importance of drum heads; the batter and resonant head

Understanding drum tuning

All online lessons will be taught on my Mapex Armory kit and sound will be routed through my 18 channel soundcard giving all students clarity while listening to the lessons.