LESSONS

Our Drumdrill sessions are a great way to ask yourself questions about your drumming. Between how you normally hear, move and think there is a lot to consider in order to get to where you want to be.
There is a lot of material available online these days and it can seem like a good idea to just go down the youtube or pre-recorded lesson route. However, with direct guidance, I can help you identify the habits you need to start changing to see significant and meaningful improvements in your playing.

For the last 20 years I have taught hundreds of drummers both privately and in formal institutions such as BiMM London (formerly Drumtech), ICMP and LMA colleges. I have developed a strong reputation, helping musicians to sound great behind the drums.
My priorities as a player are always to be able to  make the band sound great.
I work on fundamentals that are directly applicable in musical situations.
Whether I help someone taking their first steps on the instrument, or  professional players who want to fine tune their technique, I have a very similar approach:
It starts with a dialogue, understanding the person I work with, a diagnostic then a plan to reach our goals.

One to One drum lessons are available in person at my studio in Chiswick, West London or online via ZOOM/SKYPE. If you’re interested in booking a lesson or would like a chat, please fill out the Contact form below.

A GLIMPSE INTO MY APPROACH

My teaching, like my playing, has evolved over the years.
Discovering, understanding and accepting ones deep habits is key to be able to implement real and meaningful changes in our ability to learn and improve any skill.
The goal oriented approach of learning – omnipresent in our western society, tends to make us value ‘trying to be correct’, ‘succeed’, and ‘being right or wrong’.

If you only keep looking at what you want you are probably not going to do what you need.

Letting go of the desire to achieve the result and instead identifying the habit that you must change in order to set you on the right path.
Once the habit identified, the mindset shifts to experiment with a task to develop a skill rather than having it memorised and stored hoping for results.

Taking a few lessons to pass your driving test isn’t quite like learning how to actually drive right? 

So I focus my efforts on addressing the:
HEAD, so that the
EARS can take centre stage and help the
HANDS getting comfortable at executing.

Your ideas don’t come from your hands!
To borrow from F.M Alexander’s principles: What feels Normal isn’t necessarily Natural.

Physically
It means that without a focused intention on what body part you want to use and how, your body will simply react to what you’re trying to play. It will go to what it ‘knows’ and you’ll likely waste many hours of hard work without understanding why you’re not making the expected progress. You’re getting in the way, and it likely starts with your approach not your ability.

AS AN EXPERIMENT TRY THIS:

This is a little perception test I like to explore. Follow the steps below and let’s see if we can find some challenges in the simple stuff.

• Grab a sit and start playing a single stroke roll RLRL etc, no need for click or sticks.
• Keep going, simply observe, try not to yawn just yet and start asking yourself:
• Can you comfortably hear a pulse?
• Can you hear the rhythms played by each hand individually?
• The resulting 16th note?
• You just assumed these were 16th right? That was your brain choosing for you, going for the path of least resistance.
• Without changing the motion or the speed of your hands and without adding any accents, can you hear this single stroke roll as triplets, 8th, quintuplets…?
• Can you swap the leading hand, mentally?
• Let’s assume they are indeed 16th notes. Can you count any number on top of each note?  (e.g ‘3’= 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 ,1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 etc)
• How does that affect your sense of time and your motion?
• Still no accent right?
• Ok, you can stop counting. From the neck down, left to right, try to get a feel for all the muscles involved.
• Can you get rid of a few you might think are surplus to requirement?
• What’s going on around your neck? shoulder? elbow? your forearm?
• What your face and jaws? Are you locking up at all?
• Which muscles ‘should’ you isolate for an optimum, frictionless motion?
• What if you change dynamics or subdivision? (don’t change the ‘speed’ of your hand but your perception of where the pulse is)
• How does your body/ grip react?
• What if you keep the same rhythm (16th) but now you change the sticking to RRLL? The same sound, same rhythm, just different technique.
• How is your body ‘fighting back’, how is your notion of time and rhythm being affected there?
• The quality of your sound and dynamics?
• Does it matter whether you lead with your right or your left hand?
• Does it matter if we start the doubles ‘across’ the beat?

We ‘just’ started with a single stroke roll and barely moved from that base right?
…and we’re not even playing on the kit or with accents. Add different sounds, pitches, an extra limb or two and all of these perceptions will be even more challenged.

Basic is powerful, very.

With a bit of curiosity and creativity it can go from ‘Simple‘ to ‘What The Hell !?‘ in no time.

More importantly it is useful, applicable and a guaranteed way to connect deeply into the music.