8 years of professional teaching - time to give it away

NUTHA JASON

Senior Administrator
I have spent the last eight years teaching drums full time but I've decided it is time to just put my experience out there so over the next few months I'm going to shoot maybe a hundred videos on how to play the drums from the first beginner lesson to intermediate stuff maybe even advanced all in a very gradual progression. I'm going to focus not just on content of a progressive curriculum but also
- creativity
- strategies for self teaching and learning

here are my first 13 videos as a playlist (more will be added weekly):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBBcug4tRTe-8YEwKZFtF0JNnEW5BbIpp

please have a look and sorry for my chopped off head.

cheers guys.

j
 
Hi J

Just watched the first five. As a new (for new read old but new)(for old but new read 53 and just started to learn) I found your lessons light hearted and informative.

I'm starting out with a practice pad and a pair of sticks learning the rudiments. However, once I get my kit, I'll be back to your videos for sure.

Thanks for taking the time to put them together and sharing.

Martin
 
Hey, I went and checked out your videos - just the first four, so far. They look really good. However, it would be nicer if you were doing these with a good well-tuned kit. It's like wanting to be a Formula 1 race car driver and watching them drive a Ford Fiesta - Doesn't work too well.

Also, in the first video you mention about how a lefty should learn on a right-handed kit. While yes, in the real world of drumming that make a lot of sense, I also believe that it is potentially harmful for a new drummer. Can you imagine what a poor world we would live in if Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, and others were told to practice their art using only their right hand?

Let left-handed people play left-handed. The rest of the musical world needs to get used to it. Remember, nuns don't whack kids on their left hand anymore when they write with it.

Back to my main point, I like the videos. :)
 
thanks guys.

mmulcahy1
in a sense you are right on both points but here is my justification:

for the bad quality school kits recorded unprofessionally with just a simple phone camera:
a) I can't afford good production
b) most beginners will be learning on kits of this grade

re left handed kits:
a) you don't get left handed pianos
b) my pupils have 30 or 20 minute lessons. to reset a whole kit for a lefty will seriously eat into their lesson time.
c) all drummers should eventually become ambidextrous anyway

it is just not a perfect world no matter which way you slice it. by the way I currently have 50 pupils a week and my top three are left handers - they took longer to get started but then surged ahead once their weak limb was forced to do a lot of work.
 
Good stuff Nutha. Thanks for dropping in. Hope all is well. Good to see you.
 
Great stuff! liked it a lot.

With the Left/Right thing there is no right or wrong answer. Many pop culture icons (Bonham, Moon, Ringo) were lefties playing righty.

You might see if you can run the raw audio through active noise-reduction followed by a compressor/limiter. It will make the voice and drums the same volume.

peace and love.
 
re left handed kits:
a) you don't get left handed pianos
b) my pupils have 30 or 20 minute lessons. to reset a whole kit for a lefty will seriously eat into their lesson time.
c) all drummers should eventually become ambidextrous anyway

a) you don't need left handed pianos
b) if you know you have a lefty student, why can't you, as the professional, reconfigure the kit to their best advantage, before they arrive?
c) yes but only when they are good and ready.
 
magenta - if you read my post you would see that many of my pupils only have twenty minutes and I teach them one after the other all morning. how long do you think it takes to change a standard kit around to a left set up? 5 minutes? what about and electric kit? probably longer. now consider that I would have to do that within the pupil's lesson and reset it back so that each week the pupil who has paid for twenty minutes will get ten at best.

then try to think about my piano example - left handers play the same piano as right handers. same with flute and other wind instruments
 
Sorry, I didn't intend this to become a Right-hand vs. Left-hand thing. I really do like your videos for the beginning drummer. Kudos!!

But let's take the guitar for example. While yes, there are many left-handed people who play the guitar right-handed, there are virtually no right-handed musicians who play the instrument left-handed - the same goes for drums.

I, as well as a few others here on DW, are lefties that play lefty. I don't want to play right-handed. Would it be more convenient for me to do so? In a word, yes. But, my strengths lie with my left hand and my left foot, not the other way around. As a lefty drummer, I am fully aware of what a pain it is to switch the kit around from right to left. It takes time, it's a nuisance, and it generally ticks other people off. I can't sit in at a jam session on another drummer's kit. I suppose that if I ask, they might let me move things around, but I am always respectful of their drums and their set-up and would never impose. That's just the way I roll.

Now, yes, I know that a lot of instruments (Piano, flute, other wind instruments) are designed only one way and have been for centuries and if you want to play one of those instruments, you buy into that fact - period. But, that's the beauty of being a drummer (or guitarist), we can manipulate our instrument(s) to our liking and don't have to conform to century's old practices. Using my artist example from earlier, could you imagine what would have become of the Sistine Chapel if Michelangelo were forced to learn to paint right-handed. In all likelihood, we would have never heard of Michelangelo because he wouldn't have been the artist he became. The world owes a debt of gratitude to his left hand and his perceived vision to the right hemisphere of his brain.

Again, sorry. I'm not trying to start a battle or win a war here. Keep up the good work. I really enjoyed the videos I have seen up to this point. You have a genuine rapport on video that I'm sure is far better in person.

Cheers!
 
I think a lefty being able to play lefty kits 100% of the time would be cool and all, but lefties are already used to having to adapt to right-handed things and tasks all the time, so they're usually more ambidextrous and flexible with handedness anyways. The logistics of the OP's teaching job trump lefty-kit idealism, and if a potential student really had that much of a problem being taught on a righty kit, they could find another teacher.
 
ty
just starting , need all the help I can get :)
 
But let's take the guitar for example. While yes, there are many left-handed people who play the guitar right-handed, there are virtually no right-handed musicians who play the instrument left-handed - the same goes for drums.
Well I am one of those "virtually none", because as a child, it was impossible for me to play a right-handed guitar, even as a righty. I held it backwards. :)
 
I've always played totally lefty. Started in late 1969. I would be dismayed at any teacher that would not accommodate a left handed player. That in itself is totally unprofessional. It only takes a few minutes to switch a kit. Do you mean to tell me that you can't schedule a few minutes for a lefty. Just how many lefties do you think you'll be switching the kit for? Chances are you'll only have one out of a whole group of students. If you don't have time for that, how do you go to the bathroom during the day? I'm sorry but I have doubts about your teaching abilities, you sound very unprofessional. I not saying I'm better than you, or anything like that, I just think you're not the teacher you think you are.
 
I've always played totally lefty. Started in late 1969. I would be dismayed at any teacher that would not accommodate a left handed player. That in itself is totally unprofessional. It only takes a few minutes to switch a kit. Do you mean to tell me that you can't schedule a few minutes for a lefty. Just how many lefties do you think you'll be switching the kit for? Chances are you'll only have one out of a whole group of students. If you don't have time for that, how do you go to the bathroom during the day? I'm sorry but I have doubts about your teaching abilities, you sound very unprofessional. I not saying I'm better than you, or anything like that, I just think you're not the teacher you think you are.

I'm not going to get into all of that, but an instructor I was taking lessons with ALWAYS accommodated lefties. One of his students before me was a lefty and we had to switch around the student kit before my lessons.
 
forcing a left handed drummer to play right handed is completely ridiculous to me
Completely agree....that would suck the fun right out of any drum kit time as a student.

When I was very young taking lessons, I never had a drum kit, so the most fun and exciting part was getting to that lesson and playing on a kit. Even if it was mostly practice pads and cymbals with t-shirts.
 
As a lefty that plays righty (guitar, drum, keyboard), I really have not experienced any issues playing a righty kit.

That said, If I had begun on a left handed kit, I'd change the config myself and not get too hung up about it. It only takes a couple minutes to switch hat/snare with FT/Ride.

For me, the issue early-on was left-versus-right hand lead. After a year, it has sorted itself out and I can lead with whatever the part calls for. I can even hear when other drummers are goofy-rights (left handed, playing right handed, leading left handed).
 
Hi Nutha Jason

Saw a few of your videos, and they are very informative. I especially like how you explain your breakdowns (you sure must have taught a lot of kids!), and recently teaching elementary kids myself, I find your teaching methods to be very helpful too!

When we can accommodate left handed kits, we would by all means teach lefties. Unfortunately, like most schools/shops, there just simply isn't enough time to take the kit apart and set it up reversed, and to do it again afterwards. Because of the lack of resource (of course by that I mean time, money to buy another kit, space for another kit, etc.) many will just accommodate for the majority (which are righties).

I'm a super proud lefty myself, but it's because I learned drums and guitar in my high school (which majority wouldn't give state of the art music facilities), I'm forced to learn them all right handed. I don't think it would have made a difference if I was to play on a left handed kit (though I did started out with playing hi hat with my left hand).
 
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