Tag Archives: drum set lessons

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September Lesson Materials

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Since I’m going to be teaching the Fall Session of Rock Band at one of my studios, I created a new ROCK BAND page (under FOR MY STUDENTS). It includes materials such as “Notes on the Low E and A Strings”, “12-Bar Blues in G, D, A, and Am”, “Strumming Rhythms Index, Book 1 Summary”, “TNT by AC/DC”, and an easy version of “Nothing Else Matters by Metallica”. I will continue to add materials (mostly songs) as I finish them. All of the materials that are instrument-specific will still be found on my GUITAR, BASS GUITAR, and DRUM SET pages.

For Drum Set, I moved 12-Bar Blues from my Recital Songbook to my Method Book, since I have 12-Bar Blues in my Ukulele, Guitar, and Bass Guitar Method Books, not in the Recital Songbooks. There is a version at the end of each Level that incorporates what the students have learned up to that point. I posted new versions of Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

The Guitar and Ukulele Recital Songbooks, Book 1 are now ready to sell. I posted a PDF of the first 6 songs so that students can still try try them out before deciding if they want to buy them. The PDFs also include some blank pages for songwriting, and there are still the recordings of songs 1 to 5 to listen to and/or play along with.

PDFs of all of these materials can be found under the FOR MY STUDENTS tab, on the ROCK BAND, GUITAR, DRUM SET, and UKULELE pages. As always, please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

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June Lesson Materials

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Last month I had the fun idea to write a song for my students that is a medley of Mary Had a Little Lamb and Hot Cross Buns. The verses are Mary Had a Little Lamb (the three-both version) and the choruses are Hot Cross Buns, both with traditional harmony. For the bridge I used Mary Had a Little Lamb, but this time harmonized it in the relative minor key, and also used the version with the high note. It is intended to be sung and played on guitar or ukulele (words, melody, chords, and strumming rhythm), but can also be played by piano and bass guitar (if they know chords). I also transcribed I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You, as performed by Twenty One Pilots. Both of these songs are available in the keys of C Major and G Major on my UKULELE and GUITAR pages under the FOR MY STUDENTS tab.

In my last post I mentioned that I had created Recital Songbooks for guitar, ukulele, and drum set. One of the additions I’ve made since then is that I added 12-Bar Blues to the Drum Set Recital Songbook at the end of each section. There is a version with quarter notes on the cymbals, one with 8th notes on the cymbals, one with bass drum variations, and one that adds fills. The biggest addition I am making to those books is that I am making recordings of each of the songs in the Guitar and Ukulele Recital Songbooks (drum set students can play along with any song since the different chords don’t matter, as long as the drum set students use any of the songs in 4/4 time that are not 12-Bar Blues). I have already posted Ukulele Recital Songs 1-5, and I will continue releasing about 5 songs every week. Next week (the week of July 14th) I will release recordings of Guitar Recital Songs 1-5, the following week (the week of July 21st) I will release recordings of Ukulele Recital Songs 6-10, and the last week in July (the week of July 28th) I will release recordings of Guitar Recital Songs 6-10. After that I will continue to make new recordings as I add new songs to the songbooks. I’m also creating new pages for recordings called GUITAR RECITAL SONGBOOK and UKULELE RECITAL SONGBOOK under the FOR MY STUDENTS tab.

As always, please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

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More Note-Reading Units

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Since I’m continuing to focus on Guitar/Ukulele Karate, I worked on anything that is needed for the first couple of belts (White Belt and Yellow Belt). For both Guitar and Ukulele I split Note-Reading Unit 1 (The Key of C Major) into two parts to make it clear for the students what is required (part 1 is for White Belt, part 2 is for Yellow Belt). Also for both Guitar and Ukulele I removed any songs that have 8th notes, and I will eventually be including all of those exercises and songs (as well as others) in a later unit. I also made some adjustments/updates to Ukulele Note-Reading Units 2 (The Key of G Major) and 3 (The Key of F Major), and then created Unit 4 (The Key of D Major). Also, on Friday January 24th I awarded my first White Belt to one of my guitar students. She is well on her way to testing for her Yellow Belt, and I have a few students who should be able to get their White Belts soon.

I have a xylophone student who is coming to the end of Unit 3 (The Key of F Major), so I wanted to make sure that Unit 4 (The Key of D Major) will be ready for him. I also realized that when I am choosing melodies in a particular key, there are melodies where tonic/Do is the lowest note and the notes of the melody ascend from there (sometimes even reaching the higher octave tonic/Do), and some melodies have tonic/Do in the middle descending to the notes below (usually down to the dominant/Sol) as well as ascending to the notes above (sometimes to the high dominant/Sol). For ukulele I usually have to choose one or the other because the range of the ukulele is so small (and I’m not dealing with different hand positions moving up the neck yet), but since most mallet instruments span multiple octaves, I wanted to make sure I included both types of melody ranges (in multiple octaves). I added any “missing” exercises and melodies to Units 1, 2, and 3, and then created Unit 4 with the same format.

A few weeks ago I had the idea to restructure my Snare Drum and Drum Set method books. In my Snare Drum book, I’ve tried to teach all of the new rhythms in various meters, but it occurred to me that maybe I should introduce every new concept in 2/4 time first, then have two lessons in 4/4 time with plenty of variations, then have a lesson in 3/4 time. This way, all of the core rhythmic concepts and their variations can be simplified by dealing with only two beats at first. Then stretching those ideas out to 4/4, which is still very symmetrical, familiar, and comfortable, and also having two lessons in 4/4 time to really give the concepts an opportunity to settle into the students’ muscle memory. Then finally give them a challenge with the less-familiar/comfortable 3/4 time, before moving onto the next concept. In my Snare Drum book this is still a work in progress, so it will be a little while longer before I post them, but I was able to implement this concept in my Drum Set book. I had already followed that concept of 2/4 then 4/4 then 3/4, however, I only had one page in each unit devoted to 4/4. In each unit I added a second page of drum set beats in 4/4 with the snare drum is on beat 3 (instead of beats 2 and 4 like the initial 4/4 pages). I also added a unit with Bass Drum Variations in 2/4, 4/4 (both versions), and 3/4, which is now Unit 3. Four Measure Phrases are now Unit 4 and everything else is also pushed back a unit.

PDFs of all of these materials can be found under the FOR MY STUDENTS tab, on the GUITAR, UKULELE, MALLETS, and DRUM SET pages. As always, please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

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August Lesson Materials

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In my Ukulele Chord-Strumming Method Book I changed the order in which the initial chords are introduced. Originally I introduced CM and FM in Lesson 1, then GM in Lesson 2, Am in Lesson 3, and Dm in Lesson 4 (before introducing G7 in Lesson 5). I liked the idea that the students would learn CM, FM, and GM right away so that they could potentially play a number of songs after only two lessons. I have noticed however, that many students struggle with GM (it requires three fingers), so I decided to introduce the chords starting with the easiest ones instead, even though they might not be able to play as many real songs until after Lesson 4. Now, I introduce CM and Am (both only use one finger) in Lesson 1, FM (uses two fingers) in Lesson 2, Dm (three fingers) in Lesson 3, then finally GM in Lesson 4. I’ve seen some other books and teachers introduce AM early on because it also uses only two fingers, which I don’t do because I still wanted to keep Unit 1 in the key of C Major (CM, Am, and FM, are much more likely to be used in songs with Dm and GM than with AM).

I wanted do create still more Supplemental Piano Exercises to use with my piano students, so I did Unit 7: Reading Notes on the Staff in C Position, and Unit 8: The Grand Staff in C Position and Slurs.

In my Drum Set Method Book I added three units dealing with compound meters (6/8, 12/8, and 9/8). Unit 5 deals with how to play beats in those meters, and Unit 6 shows how to play four-measure phrases with fills in those meters. Unit 7 brings back the Four-Measure Phrase Song Form to practice a variety of beats and fills in those compound meters. I also added an additional page at the end of Unit 4 and Unit 7 that has drum beats with the bass drum playing either on all the downbeats or playing constant 8th notes (in most of the drum beats I use in the book, I don’t have the bass drum playing at the same time as the snare drum).

For my Guitar Chord-Strumming Book, I was looking forward to taking a break from bar chords, so I worked on Unit 11: Dominant 7 Chords. After I finished it, I was on a roll, so I went ahead and did Unit 12: Major 7 Chords and minor 7 Chords.

Please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.

teaching

February Lesson Materials

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In February I finished my Guitar Method Book Note-Reading Unit 1, which teaches the eight natural notes on the three high strings (G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G) and Unit 2, which teaches the nine natural notes on the three low strings (E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E, F). I also rearranged my “Guitar Beginning Riff and Solo Exercises” so that all of the major pentatonic and minor pentatonic exercises are side-by-side, and I also put all of the quarter note rhythms first, followed by all of the 8th note rhythms.

I worked on my Snare Drum Method Book for the first time in a long time. (To give you an idea of how long it’s been, all of my sentences had TWO spaces after the periods… which I changed.) I did a bunch of overall formatting clean-up, but the main thing was that I rearranged Units 5 and 6. Originally Unit 5 focused on 3/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, and 12/8 using mostly 8th notes with occasional quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and rests, and Unit 6 added 16th notes to the same set of meters. In the updated versions Unit 5 is all of the compound meters (3/8, 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8) first using mostly 8th notes with occasional quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and rests, and then adding 16th notes to those same compound meters, and Unit 6 is the complex meters (two versions of 5/8 and 3 versions of 7/8) first using mostly 8th notes with occasional quarter notes, dotted quarter notes, and rests, and then adding 16th notes to those same complex meters.

It had also been a long time since I worked on my Drum Set Method Book, so it was in need of some updates. I realized that in addition to 4/4 which is the most common meter in music, I should also include exercises in 2/4 and 3/4 at the beginning of the book since they are also relatively common. I followed the same format that I originally used to introduce 4/4 on drum set: building a basic quarter note beat, building a basic 8th note beat, learning how to navigate four-measure phrases, and then playing a whole song form. I added 2/4 and 3/4 versions of those exercises parallel to the 4/4 versions, so that the students will be well versed with all three meters right from the beginning.

Please let me know if you use any of these teaching materials with your students, and if you find them helpful, or if you have any questions or comments.