Teaching advice

[Dazzler]

You make me laugh Rudy, I've had all the same problems as you! I say in every lesson that "these rhythms I'm giving you aren't exercises that I tick off once you can play them, they are rhythms that you'll hear every day on the radio and HAVE to be mastered by any good drummer". I then say "don't just play it for a few bars, tell me that you've done it and stop, play it for 5 minutes without the music and without stopping, as you would if it were accompanying a pop song"

I also get my students to vocalise each rhythm before they play it, so:

"bum, ba bum bum, ba" etc.

I also make them tell me what beats of the bar the snare and BD is so I'm sure they know. I was teaching today and all the points you've raised came up. Regarding when it is time to move on... one girl has had a basic pop/rock rhythm for 5 weeks so I said to to her "tell me, you've had this for 5 weeks now and you still can't play it. I'd like YOU to tell ME, if you were in my shoes, do you think this is acceptable? What time scale would you give a student to get just ONE BAR of rhythm down?" She looked sheepish and said "probably a week". "Exactly, I said!". So I'm not being an arse-hole by wanting her to be able to play it so we can both move on. I even told her that I was bored. I think it's fair enough.

All my best students vocalise the snare and DB without being embarrased, count aloud, play along to music in time and think about the sound they are producing. This too is vital. I hate it when students hack away at the hi hat like they're chopping wood, I get them to think about the position of their body in relation to the druums and make sure they know that this affects the sound of what they are playing. "We sound like we look" after all.

As I said in my last post, I have really changed my approach this term and don't get wound up as I did before: students definitely sense it when I'm getting tense and aggitated by them, so now I try to see good in what they're doing and praise them. As I said, it's a business as well and I don't want to lose students (I have in the past) due to me being impatient and crabby with them.

I could go on as I've just taught for 7 hours, but I think I'll leave it there!

[FlamTriplet]

I had an asian student who wasn't good with english. I asked her if she had a drumset. She said yes, but she never brought sticks with her. [img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img] So a couple of months go by, and I ask her why she couldn't get buzz rolls together. She said she didn't have a drumset. [img]rolleyes.gif[/img] Then she said she didn't have a practice pad. [img]eek.gif[/img] Then she said she didn't have sticks, she used pencils on her desk. [img]graemlins/cry_smile.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ March 18, 2005 12:55 AM: Message edited by: FlamTriplet ]</font></font>

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 18, 2005 12:57 AM: Message edited by: FlamTriplet ]</font>