Drum Lessons Bristol

DRUMMING IS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS!

Get that world beating Christmas present to rock your loved one's world and create a hit that will change their life.

Gift vouchers available via email or printed for collection. Great fun lessons on drum kit from a very experienced drum teacher in Clifton, Bristol.

This year I am offering a very good group deal on ticket sales. The prices work out as follows:

1 lesson = £40
2 lesson = £70
3 lesson = £90
4 lesson = £100

A great last minute Christmas present!

Sam was an excellent student, with a lot of energy, which sometimes gave rise to concentration issues. He was very bright, but had a tendency to bounce off the walls. With dedication, patience and practise, he became a talented drummer.

It is awesome to see him finally playing live. I have reared another drummer and released them into the wild.

After looking at other drum courses, I decided that the Trinity College Rock & Pop Drum grades are by far the best. Trinity has invested in the licenses to allow them to produce cover versions of original, all time great tracks and they are very convincing and great fun to play along. It gives you the benefits of playing in a band, whilst studying on your own.

The selection of famous, hit rock and pop songs includes the likes of:

• Queen - We Will Rock You


• James Brown - Hot Pants


• Bob Marley - Three Little Birds


• Coldplay - Yellow


• Michael Jackson - Billy Jean


• Wilson Pickett - Mustang Sally


• Mark Ronson - Uptown Funk


• The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army


• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge


• The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary


• Alicia Keys - Fallin'


• Blur - Song 2

And a whole lot more. There are songs for all tastes, covering all genres.

Sixteen years ago, when I first started teaching drum kit, my second ever student, was Ross Bambrey, a bass player who wanted to improve his timing. He was already an accomplished musician and so quickly adapted to the theory side of things. This became an interesting exercise in teaching rhythm.

By the time he had left Bristol and moved to Somerset, he was a very capable drummer and when he joined a new band the guitarist said, "you are the tightest bass player I have ever met!"

He is now running the Glastonbury Dragon Drummers group, performing regularly at festivals, composing his own tracks and is getting to grips with music by Tool, which typically involves some very weird time signatures and polyrhythms.

It is such a pleasure to have trained and released a drummer into the wild.

Drum sticks are a weird and wonderful world, of which few seem to have definitive knowledge.

Hickory

The most important thing about drum sticks is that they should be made of hickory. Hickory is a hard wood, with fine grain, that produce very straight sticks that are resistant to warping.

Straightness

The second most important thing is that they are straight. You can check this by putting them on a flat surface and rolling them. If the tip wobbles, then they are wonky.

Weight

Next up is the feel of the stick. Is it the right weight for you? Generally speaking, smaller people, playing lighter beats will use lighter sticks. This is far from being a hard and fast rule, but is a good rule of thumb.

I start my students on 5As, but I myself use 5Bs. Generally speaking the lower the number, the thicker and heavier the stick. I have 7As for playing jazz, for example.

The difference between 5A and 5B is the shape of the shoulder. The 5A has a longer, slimmer neck and the 5B has a shorter, chunkier neck. This puts more weight up by the tip, for more powerful strokes. These are good for heavy rock, but more weight means more work, so they might wear your arms out.

Tip

There are two main shapes of tips and two main materials. Shape-wise there are round tipped and oval tipped. Round tipped give a slightly sharper sounds as there is less contact between the tip and the skin. Oval tipped give a softer strike as more of the tip strikes the skin.

With regards material, you get wooden tips and nylon tips. Nylon tips are harder and last longer, but they give a hard sound, which I particularly dislike on the ride cymbal. I play with wooden tips, with the understanding that they are better, but won't last as long.

Brand

To be honest, most of the big name brands like Vic Firth, Zildjian, Premier, Vater produce sticks of a very similar quality. For beginners, there is no major difference, between the major brands. It's probably best to stick to these makes.

Types

Finally there are different types of drum sticks, such as beaters, brushes and hot rods. These have different uses and are not really relevant to beginners.

There is an argument that Hot Rods and brushes help you play quieter, but they are a completely different kind of feel. Nothing like sticks. I would recommend that students learn to play more quietly, rather than use these sticks.

Taste

Finally and most importantly, buy a pair of drum sticks that you like, that make you feel good. If gold drumsticks flick your switch then get gold drum sticks. But the clincher is how they feel. If they feel good, they probably are good.

Firstly, the student didn't do their rhythmic dancing homework! Secondly, it turns out that they are not actually that into Three Little Birds by Bob Marley! (What's not to like?! There is no accounting for taste!)

This therefore rendered the experiment null and void, since the aim is to help them concentrate by helping them to get into "The Zone", so that they is totally into the music, if they don't like the music, this undermines the experiment completely.

We have now moved them onto Yellow, by Coldplay, which they loves, so we will see how their concentration works when they are playing a song that they are really into.

Stay tuned...!