Teaching suggestion greatly needed

[Greaseleg]

I agree with you to a certain degree, but in my opinion, 7 is a bit young to be sitting on a pad. I started out playing drumset and learned rudiments, etc. through school band. Isn't that kind of the purpose of it? 7 year olds should be having fun. If they sit there too long and try to play a five stroke roll with no success rather than have some fun, I'd be concerned they'd lose interest. I personally think the most important thing for smaller kids to study is piano, number one, but that wasn't the subject of the thread.

[Don Worth]

Well, I look at it this way. They have come to me to teach them drums. If teaching them how to play is boring to them then they really are not ready to study then. I am not a baby sitting service or to be the happy go lucky we will do what the student wants to make him happy. If your tacking a trumpet lesson I am sure they learn to make a good tone and learn scales, so that must be boring, but to learn to play an instrument, sorry some is boring and tedious. Ihad one student that started when he was 6 and stopped and started off and on for about 3 years till he was ready to study and then had him all thru H.S. and thne stops in for a lesson off and on thru college. There are teachers that teach 40-60 kids a week and that is more of a baby sitting to me. I have had students come from these teachers and you hear how nice the guys is. Well after about 3 lessons the kid will say something like, "why didn;t my other teacher tell me this, it would have been so much easier if I had worked on my hands". BTW, the student that started yesterday from another teacher in town, knew exactly NOTHING for taking 3 months of lessons. Held stick with thumb and one finger and told me they just played beats and stuff and WOW, it works so much better what your showing me. That is in the first 10 minutes. I don't think it is ever to soon to learn correct and not just sort of play around on the drums. Considering they are paying me to teach them, a baby sitter is much cheaper and then let the baby sitter listen to the new prodigy bang on the drums. It is not like we do not move on till he can do a perfect roll, but the ability to have control of the sticks before just holding them like clubs and banging out a rock beat. I think this idea of letting the kid decide what he should do and tell the teacher is a fall out from public school were we cannot tell a kid he is not doing well or needs to step it up. No, we just say they need Ridalin and dose the kid with a drug. In my day you just needed to buckle down a bit and study harder..... [img]biggrin.gif[/img] I am sure that every band director that eventually gets my students in band class become the top players since they had a good foundation before getting there. Now you have the guy that had fun at his lessons and played beats, but cannnot read a lick, play a swing beat, but can sure play a LOUD rock beat out of time with no concern for were a fill my land. I just see to many kids that tell there mom what they want to learn and the kid is in 7th grade and has only been in band class for a month but thinks he is a drum god because his buddy tells him he is a good as Neil Peart......LOL....I liken this to if the kid does not think that learning basic math is boring and it is hard then we should just skip that part because it is not fun.....Ok, enough ranting again

[drumgod1]

Here, here, Don!!! Whatever happened to the days of being young and going to the local drum instructor, who sat you down with a pad and sticks & you worked technique for at least a year. Then, if the instructor said you were ready, you got a snare drum or even a drumset (if you already had the snare). Kids now just want the quick way to the set. I make mine sit down with the pad or snare and learn technique & reading. That tends to weed out the kids who want to play drums like Travis Barker, but don't want to put in the time. I'm not knockin' Travis, I think he's a helluva player, but he's put in A LOT of time to polish his craft. I wish my students would too.

[Timbata]

I teach a lot of little kids, often as early as 4 or 5. Start with the music! Have them bring a CD of music they like to their first lesson. Put it on and ask them to find the pulse and play it (you can help them, play along with them etc...)Then ask them to divide the pulse in two equal parts (ie eighth notes). Do the same thing with sub division of three & four. Don't label anything as 16th notes quartes etc... Build from there. Once they understand, hear, and feel the various sub divisions then you can put labels to them and start reading.


The worst thing you can do is start out with. ? This 4/4 time, the quarter note gets the beat and there are four beats per measure? ?. You will see their eyes glaze over and all of the excitement they have for music will disappear.

Good luck

[Don Worth]

I tell the parents with little kids that we will try the lessons and see how they go. There is no way I would start a little kid on set since they cannot even reach the pedals. When I get a new student they are expecting a certain degree of learning and not jsut lets hit stuff. Most little kids are smarter than there parents give them credit for, and if they do not understand fractions then I deal with splitting a pie into pieces and they understand that let alone when they do get fractions in school at least they have one step up on that part of math. When I get a student how do I know that they all want to play set. I have had students only want drum corps rudimental stuff or are interested in legit percussion, so by baby sitting these kids and let them play set I feel I am doing a diservice op passing this drum information along. Not every person I teach do the exact same things. Have kids with NO band program at school and jsut want to do drumset, fine but they still learn to read so in the furture they can at least work on new things on there own for the rest of there lives. I just feel that too many kids want that instant gratification right now and they need to learn at a young age that some things do take work to do and that will help them with life later on. I am not there to torture the kid but to teach them something and I am also there counselor when they can't ask there parents. Had to give the dont do drug speech and talk to girl students if they should break up with there boyfriend since he said unless I give him a blow job tonight then we are done. I am the person they can ask and they know I will give them a straight answer to there problems. I guess I am the old school teacher that does not want a new student to have a drum setr and think he is going to learn a song. Like anyone can tell what song we are playing by ourselves. Want a pad and sticks and will see if this is going to work beofre you go spend money on a drums set. I don't work at a music store so there is no pressure to push a set. My father ran a drum shop in Portland and taught me and and I did all the boring rudiments and won snare drum solo's and was playing big band gigs at the age of 16, and don't think I would play like I do now mif dad just started me at 5 with lets just bang on the drums. No, I learned trad grip and worked on it and accomplished my stuff, but then it was either practice or ride my bike or go to play ball. Had pong eventually and that was not that exciting......*LOL*. I find to many kids get so mnay after school thinkgs going and then try to fit lessons in also. You talk to the student and he is not good at anything because they never spend enough time working on one thing to sort of get better at anything. Mediocrity seems to be the level that is OK with moist of them and not getting good at it......well, I can sort of play it, well try to play it like someone might actually want to play music with you.

[XNavyDrummer]

I think a student can benefit from short term "instant gratification" (Here's a simple tune let's see you groove with it on the kit). I'm sure what first got them interested in drumming in the first place was watching some drummer play in some cool musical context. I think they should have a taste of this upfront.

On the other hand the student should also be put on that long road to solid technique development (delayed gratification). This means taking the time to woodshed on the rudiments with a metronome.

I always tell my students up front that learning the basics of drumming is BORING. (There's no way around it!) And, that the rewards for doing all that tedious stuff can be huge.

[Don Worth]

I just tell the students and parents what is going to be involved with lessons and that is how it works. Not to say that each student may be put on a different track of learning. If you get the students who has never played and shows up to first lesson with no sticks or even drums yet. Well that student will be on the pad learning basic strokes and rudiments the first lesson and then learn notes and possibly the bounce the 2nd lesson and so forth. The kid that walks in and maybe has played or studied with someone else. OK, show me what you have worked on before or play and then will explain......welll, ok that was cool, BUT......the problem you can;t get around the drums is because your strokes are all over the place and can't even play a single stroke roll even for very long. He also will get basic strokes but will also fix his BD technique also and maybe help him set is drums up right because no one had ever looked at his drums or jsut let his weird posture and placement of throne to snare and Hi Hat. We then start to catch up what is missing in his knowledge and by the time he leaves his beat is fixed and a little more even and got some advice on how to hold the sticks which maybe the last guy never looked at or was the next door neighbor that owned drums and was teaching him before. I guess I am a stickler for technique since I get a lot of guys that just do that with me and then how to get that to the set better after that process. I have pro's take a lesson and all we might work on his the left hand stroke to correct years of bad habits and funky weird callous growths on the hands...... [img]graemlins/cry.gif[/img] Then you get the kid that can play and wants to know all the cool Vinnie or Chambers licks. Or you end up steering the kid to better music and players and then they can laugh at Ashlee Simpson and wonder how come there is not any good music out there...... [img]biggrin.gif[/img] and turn them into liking fusion music and ruining them for life.

[peter c]

I am with Dazz.

You want to make it fun. Let them
really whack them and let them ex-
plore what's best for them, in terms
of grip etc. Just suggest things and
around what they are doing and are
into. Make them love it!

[img]cool.gif[/img]

[Don Worth]

OK, lets make a difference here. I am getting paid to teach the 7 year old and maybe it is your cousin and your doing it for free. The difference I see if your spending $100 on tennis lesson for your young little tennis prodigy and you want Billy to have fun so if the tennis teacher just lets him have fun and hit the ball and find his own grip that would be OK with a parent spending his or her hard earned money for a baby sitting tennis teacher. I think you might have some upset parents at tennis center or would we have Tiger Woods without him learning the basics at a very young age.(yeah, I know he plays golf) We all watched the kid on Letterman, he had a good grip hit the drums well, and used rudiments. I am sure if I was to start a 7 year old and let him play any way he wants to have fun then were is the next 10 year old little kid that comes along and blows everyone away coming from then. Somewere the teacher has to tell them that sometimes it is boring and there will be things in your life you have to work on and if it is worth working on why not do it right. I have the kid that has had the baby sitting teacher for say a couple years and then he shows up and has ZERO clue about anything but he can play 3 beats and hit everything within striking distance. Now I have to tell him that we need to learn Rudiments and you really did not learn anything the last couple years. There are enough band directors that no zero about drums and let the kids play anyway that want and hold sticks so bizarre. That is the place for letting the kid do what he wants, not me the teacher who is to mold there little youngster into the drummer not be one expensive baby sitter.