​Why practice when I just want to have fun?

Good question. My answers are gathered from decades of teaching and practicing.

1. Students who practice earn the joy of success.
2. Students who practice earn the right to play music with others. People being social creatures means that learning to play, even just a little bit, leads to jamming, performing, and informal playing. A timeless joy.
3. Students who don’t practice get bored and quit.

If I can help you, call me.
​
David
​#Junction percussion Teacher Toronto

Here are my thoughts for quickly acquiring drum chops.  

1. Learn and memorize tunes by ear. 
2. Join a band and play as much as possible. 
3. Transcribe like crazy. 
4. Record everything you do. 
5. Learn more tunes. 
6. Technique with a metronome. Various tempi. 
6b. Get your snare drum rudiments together.
7. Play transcriptions in the idioms of your choosing. 
8. Keep up your lessons. 
9. Join a second band that plays only original music. 
10. Write some original music. 

Bonus. Read and explore the history of your chosen idioms ASAP. 
 
Timeline: 5 to 10 years.

I notice improvement in my playing every one hundred hours of practice or so. I've been working at it for 12 years. 
​
If I can help you call me. ​

David
#Junction percussion Teacher Toronto

Learning to read music opens new worlds of music to us. An important part of our journey to proficiency.

Drumming history is full of inspiring music to learn. Working and exploring music outside of our immediate interests will help us master the key areas of music and keep us from becoming bored playing the same old same old.

Here are some key benefits to learning to read scores. 

1. Endurance: no quitting until the end. 
2. Time awareness. We learn to play steadily by reading our parts while playing along with the recordings.  
3. Orchestration is choosing which instruments to play. Studying transcriptions quickly gives us insights. 
4. Vocabulary is the ability to sound convincing in a particular style. 
5. Dynamics is how we fit in with the ensemble and how we balance the instruments we are playing within our part. 
6. Repertoire is knowing tunes. The person who knows the most tunes wins every time. 
7. Rudiments The scores show us how to apply them in musical ways. 
8. Historical awareness. Your knowledge of drum history will colour everything you play now and in the future. 

Have fun, 

​David