Drum Lessons Bristol

I have a 12 year old student, who is highly intelligent, but struggles to concentrate. They are perfectly capable of working out and playing all the parts individually by themselves, but to be honest, they frequently struggle to count 8 bars, without getting distracted and lost.

This is a real problem as, if you cannot concentrate, you cannot play live music in a band, or even play a whole song on ones own. Concentration is more important than skill, although I would strongly suggest that concentration is very much a skill, especially in these circumstances.

I have explained to him that drumming is 10% skill and 90% concentration. As are all instruments. These are not official or even remotely scientific figures, but I believe they are representative. It doesn't matter how skilled you are at drums, if you cannot concentrate, you won't be able to get to the end of a song.

Today, I decided to try a new theory, based on the idea that, if somebody is totally into something, they won't be as easily distracted. He is totally into the drumming, but my theory was that he was not totally into the music.

When a drummer, or any musician, or dancer, or athlete, or any other highly trained professional, is performing at their best, they are said to be in "The Zone". The Zone is a beautiful place where you are so into what you are doing that the rest of the world ceases to exist. To get into this zone, you have to be totally into the music that you playing. You have to know it inside out and feel it as if it was part of you.

The tactic that I decided to employ was, firstly, of getting them to listen to the track over and over again, explaining the musicality of it: what parts you can follow, what parts are rhythmically reliable, the difference between bars and loops, what vocal, or musical signals there are to indicate a change in the music. Secondly, I decided to get them to stand up and move in time to the music. The point of this is that drumming is basically dancing sitting down.

The idea being that by learning to move their whole body in time with the music, if they do this whilst drumming, they will make it much easier to get into the zone. By moving the whole body, they are feeling the music, letting it move through them, letting it control, becoming part of it.

This has been set as their practise for the next week, to listen to the song and dance along to it. We will see what the result is next week. Fingers crossed. I will keep you up with progress.

This one makes me laugh. She was a very funny young lady.
Emily (14): "Gabriel is an amazing teacher. I've never had a drum teacher before, but I think he's probably doing a pretty good job, because I am doing pretty well. It has become my highlight of the week. I find it really exhilarating having learned something new every session."

Having done some soul searching and swallowing of pride, I have realised that you guys were right! The previous logo was too busy and didn't show up well at low resolution, so I decided to remove the vertical and horizontal lines from the letters and color them all black. The result is, I think, a lot cleaner and slicker and more subtle and stylish. Thank you all for your feedback! I think we are finally there!

One of my clients, who was given a drum lesson voucher for Christmas. At the end of his lesson, he turned to me and said, "Gabe, you are an inspiration!"

It was such a lovely thing to say and, whilst I don't want to blow my own trumpet, I will bang my own drum 😉

Comments like that are why I do this job <3

My favourite drummer of all time is Chad Smith, the drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are my favourite band of all time. The thing I like most about Chad Smith, is that, whilst he can play some highly complex rhythms, his greatest strength is playing relatively simple beats in an interesting way. He can hold a simple back beat, but put in little flourishes and variations, like a hi-hat stab or trill, or a crushed roll and just lift an otherwise repetitive beat onto a whole 'nother level. He is the master of making simple beats interesting.

Roland are by far the leading makers of electronic drum kits in the world.

The thing which makes the Roland V-Drums the best electronic drum kits in the world is, in my opinion, the nylon mesh drum skins, which were designed by Remo, the leading drum skin maker and feature a military grade nylon mesh, that can withstand an absolutely relentless beating. I have never heard of one breaking. The reason why I think that this is the most important feature, is that, having tried out a lot of electronic drum kits, it is the single biggest contributor to playability.

The reason why the Rolan nylon mesh drum skin is so important is because of the "response". This is the drumming term for how the skin rebounds the stick after impact. These skins (or heads) are incredibly responsive and give the best likeness to an acoustic drum head that I have ever experienced. This is particularly relevant to the snare drum head, which needs to be incredibly responsive in order to allow double sticking, buzzing and drum rolls.

The other thing which sets Roland apart and gives the electronic drum range it's name ("V-Drums") is the inverted, conical, v-shaped pickup, which through clever programming, can determine the spacial position of the stick's strike on the skin, so that it can better mimic an acoustic drum, which sounds flatter in the middle and more boingy on the edge.

Along with the incredibly detailed and well thought out sampling of real drum kits, in real recording spaces, sampled at different velocities (power of strike), different positions on the skin, different skin types and different miking positions, this makes Roland undeniably, far and away the best producer of electronic drum kits in the world. There is just no comparison in my opinion.