Teaching drums to a 4 year old

Hey everyone.
im a little stressed out cause i have my first 4 year old student where i teach.this boy's dad thinks that he has the potential and his starting in two days.does anyone know how approach the drumset to a 4 year old boy? how to start, how to show him some stuff that he will understand.
plz help.
 
I'm not a teacher but I wouldn't start him on a drum set. I would test his rhythm with other means to see if he had potential. Claves, tambourine, something. I don,t think a four year old is ready for instruction on a drumset unless he/she has had some other teaching first. I hope he proves me wrong. good luck.
 
I'm not a teacher either, but for a 4 year old I would think the very basic basic stuff first, like love for rhythm, listening to songs and distinguishing the drum parts, clapping to the beat, the stuff we all take for granted. In short start with fun and progress as per his/her abilities.
 
This thread just grabbed my attention, because i'm teaching drums to a six year old at the moment, and have been for about 3-4 months. He's been playing on the drumset without instruction for at least a year but his parents ended up asking me to give him lessons, as i already knew them through the church.

Generally, its hard work to try and explain new rhythms and fills to him, but he enjoys learning stuff he can put into practise so i try to teach as many simple variations of beats and fills as he will understand. I try to focus on teaching him general time-keeping and technique, to put him in a good position to learn more complex ideas when he's a bit older. I'v been having him play along a song on headphones each lesson, and going over simple rudiments at different dynamics and speeds... there's a lot of repeating myself, and going over things that he forgets from one week to the next, but thats the nature of the job i guess, and he is progressing so thats what matters.

Four is younger again though, so it would be even more difficult... but if the parent understands that you cant work miracles then give it a go, after a while you'll learn little ways to explain things that work.
 
I'm not a teacher, but I work with children at church. Keep things very simple, and take your time. Remember this kid is 4. He probably hasn't learned how to read yet so don't expect him to learn how to read music.
 
Some random ideas to use or discard... Introduce them to the drumset gear, foot pedals, snare drum, sticks, cymbals, explain the throwoff, the bell of the cymbal, the hi hat...Maybe attempt to teach listening skills, play a piece of music and ask how many different instruments he/she hears, teach counting, 1234,2234,3234,4234, clap to songs, count to songs, play steady quarter notes on just the bass drum to songs...4 is way young, like Big Bird and Elmo young.
 
I don't start my students unless they are at least 5, but I do have one little girl who is 4 right now. Her parents had her take lessons with someone else, who they didn't like I guess, so then they switched to me.

Keep it simple, and make it fun for them.
I had this little girl playing basic beats on the first lesson, and fills on the next. Last week we just started some paradiddles and basic rolls (she really digs them).
Play games with them, stuff that involves their right and left hand. It can sometimes be hard, but as long as you have the patence and can keep finding ways to make it fun for them, you should have no problems.

Good luck!
 
The main thing with kids that age is the attention span. If they are used to participating in sports, daycare, or preschool, their attention span might be better. The parents may need to wait another year or two if the child is not able to focus on what you are showing him. At that age, everyone is different. It is often the same with students that are a year or two older. I have had 6 or 7 year old students that cannot focus on what I am showing them. I have other 7 year old students who sit still, pay attention, and do everything that I ask of them.

Jeff
 
I think it's a great idea the parents doing this. Many of the top musical geneuses we know and love started out at the ages of just 2 and 3. I sure wish i'd started on music a bit earlier, i might not suck at it so much :p. There's a video of this kid who's parents filmed his drumming progress every year of his life from the age of like 2 or something and by the time he was 13 he was amazing on the drums and that was in 2006 as well so he's probably even better now.
 
I have never had one that young- but I did get asked to teach a boy of 4 and refused as his parents did not want one on one lessons- but wanted him to join my group lessons. This would have been dificult as on top of his young age and being too short to reach everything he was left handed also and would have been the only one in the class who was left handed.

I prefer my students to be older from around 10 if possible, or younger but not much- as I find the concentration is too short and they are easily distracted.

Good luck tho!
 
My kids (6 and 3) both wanted to play. To get them started I showed them some basic beats just using hands, and simplified it until it was something they could manage by themselves. After a while they started adding feet (which they can barely reach, by the way!) and making their own beats up.

I think it will be a while before they're playing beats like you or I would play, but they're having fun (most important at this stage), and developing (less important, but still good).
 
The main thing with kids that age is the attention span. If they are used to participating in sports, daycare, or preschool, their attention span might be better. The parents may need to wait another year or two if the child is not able to focus on what you are showing him. At that age, everyone is different. It is often the same with students that are a year or two older. I have had 6 or 7 year old students that cannot focus on what I am showing them. I have other 7 year old students who sit still, pay attention, and do everything that I ask of them.

Jeff

Great advice, as usual Jeff.

Teaching them age appropriate music concepts is more important than specific instruction of an instrument. I have a piano in my studio and the young drum students like to tinker with it, and even ask if I can teach them piano today and I'll show them something on the piano and then get to the drum lesson. When I teach piano to 5-6 year olds, I work in a lot of spelling words with the piano. Let's make a song with the letters D-A-D, for example,

As far as the drums go, there is the issue of physical strength that kids may not possess until at least 7. So executing rudiments or beats may not be suitable. You have to consider what you are teaching them from the perspective of what they are learning in school or pre-school and then find a way to integrate your isntruction into their mind set.

Working with young kids is a difficult task and a lot of work. My sister is an ECE teacher and prefers 4-5. I don't know how she does it. Genreally though, you are not going to see the type of concentration needed for lessons before seven and probably not until 8 or 9. There's a reason why they start lessons at 9 or 10 in the public schools.
 
with my extremely limited experience with children and my even more limited drum teaching knowledge i'd say if your kit isn't covered in jam after the lesson you've done well
 
well i started wen i was 4!!! but thats beside the point i think that as long as they understand wat rythm is then wat the hech let them find themselves in the world of drums!!!!! i hav taught myself 2 play drumset and i hav been taught 2 play snare but i think at age 4 u hav 2 get passed all things that distract them which 2 me is VERY challenging i would advise the parents 2 wait till he is older and more mature but again thats my opinion!!!!! which i thank u 4 reading!!!
 
I would think the communication barrier would be the biggest stumbling block, that and getting them to practice at 4 years old. As suggested, make it a game, you'll have to do a lot of simon-says type of playing and playback to even evaluate his (it's a boy?) concept of rhythm and timing. I don't think it's appropriate for parents to push their kids into music at such a young age unless the child shows a genuine, persistent interest in it. I was pushed into piano at 5 yrs old, didn't like it, never practiced. Guitar again at 7 yrs old, didn't like it, never practiced. Finally got a drumset for xmas when i was 8 yrs old and immediately knew that drums were my instrument but the key was having fun. If it's not fun, then it's work.
 
I would think the communication barrier would be the biggest stumbling block, that and getting them to practice at 4 years old. As suggested, make it a game, you'll have to do a lot of simon-says type of playing and playback to even evaluate his (it's a boy?) concept of rhythm and timing. I don't think it's appropriate for parents to push their kids into music at such a young age unless the child shows a genuine, persistent interest in it. I was pushed into piano at 5 yrs old, didn't like it, never practiced. Guitar again at 7 yrs old, didn't like it, never practiced. Finally got a drumset for xmas when i was 8 yrs old and immediately knew that drums were my instrument but the key was having fun. If it's not fun, then it's work.

That's the ticket, There is a language barrier working with kids that you need experience to get through. I always had a big issue with that so I make learning new words a part of my teaching. Also. younger kids cannot take material that you've given them and work with it alone at home. They need parental supervision. So when you see these wunderkinder on youtube, there is someone working with them very closely at least a few times a week and maybe even daily.

Parents get hung up with getting there kids an early start, and there is the whole Mozart syndrome. I think that putting unrealistic expectations on your kid or someone else's kid leads to the road of bad teaching. Sometimes people will bring and 8 or 10 year old to me and ask me essentially does my kid have any talent? which mean before I spend thousands of dollars teaching this kid drums is he worth it. Maybe they should spend the thousands of dollars on a parenting class.
 
^ you see this all the time, parents wanting their kids to do what they always dreamed of themselves but couldn't. They got a boring job and lifestyle and now they're regretting taking life by the balls when they could. Well it's simply not right. You should always let your kid persue their own dreams, not your own.

well i started wen i was 4!!! but thats beside the point i think that as long as they understand wat rythm is then wat the hech let them find themselves in the world of drums!!!!! i hav taught myself 2 play drumset and i hav been taught 2 play snare but i think at age 4 u hav 2 get passed all things that distract them which 2 me is VERY challenging i would advise the parents 2 wait till he is older and more mature but again thats my opinion!!!!! which i thank u 4 reading!!!

Sorry but you do sound a lot like a 4 year old in this statement. You will find that on DrummerWorld, we're quite set apart from other forums in that we tend to use correct grammar and spelling.
 
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