About to attend lessons

[jayp]

So I finally made the commitment to start taking my lessons at Don Bennett drum studios in Bellevue Washington on Saturday April 14th, Ive heard this is a TOP NOTCH drum school and am very excited to start.

I really dont have to many questions seeing as I will have a teacher to answer them but since drum lessons are fairly short in time I really want to use the lessons to the full potential, for my first lesson I want to be able to walk in with a list of questions, is there any advice or questions you can give or do any of you attened or have attended Don Bennett drums studios? If so is there any specific teacher you suggest? Im really into all styles of drumming but mainly Jazz/Funk/Fusion/Rock/Gospel

for my first session I'm going to be focusing on hand technique and have him set a exersise to work on for the week.

Also they charge $27.50 per half hour($55/hr) does this price seem reasonable?

EDIT: I Just realised I probably posted this in the wrong forum, would a moderator please move it to General Disscussion.

[Just Drums]

So I finally made the commitment to start taking my lessons at Don Bennett drum studios in Bellevue Washington on Saturday April 14th, Ive heard this is a TOP NOTCH drum school and am very excited to start.

I really dont have to many questions seeing as I will have a teacher to answer them but since drum lessons are fairly short in time I really want to use the lessons to the full potential, for my first lesson I want to be able to walk in with a list of questions, is there any advice or questions you can give or do any of you attened or have attended Don Bennett drums studios? If so is there any specific teacher you suggest? Im really into all styles of drumming but mainly Jazz/Funk/Fusion/Rock/Gospel

for my first session I'm going to be focusing on hand technique and have him set a exersise to work on for the week.

Also they charge $27.50 per half hour($55/hr) does this price seem reasonable?

EDIT: I Just realised I probably posted this in the wrong forum, would a moderator please move it to General Disscussion.

Good for you!! Lessons are extremely benificial. To prepare, maybe you could focus on your grip and practice in front of a mirror. Make sure your hands look identical in grip and in stick height. Brushing up on the old rudiments would help too!

Good luck and let us know how you liked it.

[Mapex589]

Great move on your part to get with a teacher. I played twenty some years without one and started taking lessons over 3 years ago and it's the best thing I could have done. You will learn so much from a good instructor. Congrats and have fun with it!!

[jayp]

Thanks for the response Groove & Mapex, Ive been procrastinating but I finally am commiting!

Ive been messing arround on my drums for about 2 years(about 1 year seriously) practicing rudiments and such. I think my hands are pretty good, but then again I have no idea im not a professional, I'm just hoping he wont laugh at my hand technique when I show him haha im just kidding.

So far hes suggest I pick up manuscript paper, any other things I should pick up when im at the store?

[Mapex589]

So far hes suggest I pick up manuscript paper, any other things I should pick up when im at the store?

Get yourself a music stand, you will make yourself nuts without one. Once again....good luck to you and have fun!!

[jayp]

Thats funny you say that, my brother is a guitar player and he got a really nice one and Ive been kickin myself in the ass for not getting one yet hahah thanks for reminding me.

[spleen]

If the instructor is agreeable, you may want to bring along an audio or video recorder so you can review your lessons later on.

Best of luck with the lessons!

spleen

[jayp]

AWESOME idea on the recorder! I'm also going to bring in MY metronome and have him explain how to use it, I do use my metronome I'm just not sure if im using it right on how to take an exersise and set the metronome for that specific rudiment/exersise I get confused whether I should it be setting to quater eight or sixteenth notes the tempo it self is explanitory..

[ExPLiciT]

good for you man ive been taking lessons since i started about 3 years ago it will help you and challenge you more than you ever could your self. i wish you luck with your lessons.

[dea]

You can't beat a teacher. I took lessons for the first 5 years. After he taught me how to read/write, I dropped the lessons and learned from books and continue to learn from books. Now, 27years later, I'm thinking of taking some lessons for the very specific areas I'd like to go above-and-beyond.

[jayp]

UPDATE:

So the lesson went awesome he really jumped into it and didnt waste any time, he gave me a simple jazz beat, explained how it was notated and how you can phrase certain things, he refered to the ride as splang-a-lang(another form of trip-a-let?) im sure you all know this one but it was new to me.

He also had me working on paradiddles with accents on each quater note using ONLY my wrist by wrapping my fingers arround firmly, its amazing how much your technique can improve if you take the time and SLOW down, and with within the last few days I have already noticed HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE improvement in my left(my right is pretty solid) just by isolating my strokes to wrist movement.

I also experimented and started using the paradiddle arround the drums for a roll accenting on each quater note on a tom/floor tom or accenting each quater note using a crash for a cool sounding crash/snare roll