How To Teach Drums

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from time to time I like to use drumming games with my students and this is usually at the end of the season or maybe right before Christmas or if I can tell my student has had a bad day maybe

they fail the test or someone stole their iPod or you can just tell they’re having a rough day now one of my personal faves is something I call the Ernie and Bert game okay now this is

something that I kind of came up with but I didn’t invent because for anybody who’s ever seen Sesame Street before you know who Ernie and Bert are and you can probably watch it on YouTube now but

there’s this concept that Ernie and Bert and yes I mean the puppets we’re doing because as you guys know Ernie was a drummer right and there’s this really cool video of them where Bert’s reading

a book Ernie wants to play his drums and of course Burke’s not happy about this so Ernie says hey let’s play a game Bert and he says he says I’m going to play something and you’re going to sing back

what I played so for example Ernie goes to do plays that on the drums and then Bert goes boom boom smack boom boom smack so you can do that that’s fun I mean I like to reverse the role though

what I do is I say I’m going to sing something or say something verbally rhythmically and then see if the student can interpret what I said around the drums so I might go but gotta cool to

see if they can go do cuckoo and maybe the GAC would be the snare so it gets them sort of listening to the rhythm but also I’m trying to use you know phonetic proper word for the snare cap right the

catechol let me see them going deca casts like no no right rhythm but I want to see if you can try to get the sound and it’s fun because then they do that to me and we go back and forth and

this could last a half hour and it’s always so much fun so definitely the Ernie and Bert game is a huge one that you definitely have to try with your students another great drumming game for

beginners or even for some of your more advanced players is called what drum or symbol that I just hit so what happens there is I make them look away they got to close their

eyes I might first of all introduce the sounds of the drums just so it sort of refreshes in their head I might hit each drum each symbol and then I’m gonna say

okay I’m going to hit a drum and you tell me which one I hit hit and they go TomTom like well which one hit it again hit it small Tom good so not only just a game

that’s kind of fun to play it’s also working on their ear training they don’t realize that I tell them this afterwards okay so then I might go okay let’s try this one I might go hi-hat snare drum

floor tom and then gonna go hi-hat snare drum bass drum no no do it again hi-hat snare drum floor tom they’ll get that then you let them try that with you you close your eyes and of course they’re

gonna try to stump you they’re gonna play some crazy thing anyone can make it simple I got to hear what you’re doing as it advances say it gets a little bit easy for them try doing things like two

sounds at once that’s where it gets trickier if you play the snare drum and the small Tom at the same time there’s two different tones that are overlapping and they have to go Oh snare drum and

mid Tom no no hit it again and you get them to focus on the pitches of the Tom’s so after that’s all said and done you know I say isn’t that cool because now you’re hearing drums but also you’re

really working on the ear training to really listen to pitch so things like that like I might even get them to hear the cymbals and with the different pitches I’ll say so this cymbal sounds

like this this one sounds like that then I’ll say which crash cymbal did I hit and then like the one on your left yeah because you’re hearing that sound so really fun game to get them you know

just excited about the sounds of the drums but also to secretly work on their ear training for students that have been playing a little bit longer a game that I like to play with them is called named

Mattoon and no there’s no music involved it’s just drum parts from songs so what I like to do is I might play a song drum part such as maybe Tom Sawyer or back in black or parts from Master of Puppets

make sure it songs they know so if you’re playing something that’s not within their genre or music they don’t listen to it might be more challenging but it could be from a song that we

played together in lessons or they listen to on their own but the fun thing is you’ll be amazed at how it starts to go back and forth because I’m they’re gonna go hey I got one I got one

and then I got a hopefully know the tune they’re demonstrating so that’s a really fun game called name that tune go back and forth my sharona 50 ways to leave your lover there’s so many great ways to

actually you know play a groove that see if they know the song okay now the second one is name that groove okay now name that groove is not a song it’s an actual groove like a halftime

shuffle or a merengue or a bossa nova or it could be you know any kind of Latin stuff bolero 3/4 swing just to see if they’ve obtained that information you taught them when you did talk about that

style and I especially if I play a merengue I and when I teach the students in merengue they love it it’s such a fun beat to play and they’re gonna go oh yeah that style you showed me that one

um what’s that uh it’s got a weird name like a pie or something like no it’s not meringue it’s merengue you know so it refreshes their memory on stuff they did but it also sort of recaps the stuff we

did and then they can start practicing stuff again and I’ll say hey play me a merengue and it refreshes their memory there’s always reason for these games is I want to make sure that they remember

the stuff that we did as well so that’s a huge one the last game that I play in that category is called name that Phil okay now name that Phil you have to make sure they know songs with big famous

drum fills one that I use is one called Phil’s ville it’s from Phil Collins in the air tonight you know bah boppa and 99% of the time the student gets that one now

it might be a little bit trickier if you’re picking fills from say a tool song or rush song things like that but once again you got to make sure that the student knows the song that you’re

playing the Phil from what I’ve noticed with this game is if they don’t quite know the Phil per se they know where it’s from they’re gonna be like hey that’s a cool Phil can you teach me that

and I’ll say sure and here’s how we can take this famous drum fill and use it into everyday playing so once again it expands by teaching vocabulary even more most

drum students should have some sort of a rudiment poster or some sort of a page that you’ve given them displaying all 40 drum rudiments I have one on the wall in my studio and one thing I like to play

is called the rudiment poster game so what I do is I say hey guys we’re going to play something today called the rudiment poster game and they’re like what I said I see the rudiment poster on

the wall now yep so they stare at it I said just look at it for a minute I said do me a favor study all the names for a second take your time take two minutes tops you can see them kind of looking

that’s okay now look at me and I’ll say name them and have a piece of paper and a pen I’ll start naming the ones that used that you saw honor oh flam single stroke

roll pad a flaw flaw triple ratamacue and it’s amazing because sometimes they’re going manage a wish I would have known that I had to study this I didn’t know what I was looking at so and I said

do me a favor look again but you only got 30 seconds and there now they’re studying it real quickly like oh like I didn’t know the names and all the names so came out so

you got five last time how many got this time and you’ll be amazed like 25 you know they might name some that are wrong but I’ll say this is a big part of how I want to start teaching you guys

rudiments some of the more intermediate and advanced players is get the know the names of them first once you know the names we can start applying the sticking to them okay so another rudiment poster

game that I like to play is I say okay once you get to know the names of the rudiments I want you to start naming them in order from number one down to number 40 and I’ve had a couple of

students succeed at this now I gotta be honest I can’t do that I think I get a few of the mixed up but I mean generally I can get through the most I think I probably get like a 95% on the test but

I’ve had a few students get 100% it shocks me and how much they study this thing but once again it’s really engulfing their mind into you know the world of drum rudiments and at that

point maybe down the road what I’ll say is a member that rudiment poster game we play there oh yeah yeah can you name the lots easy okay now I’m going to teach you maybe ten today like

well cool so it opens up a whole brand new door for the world rudiment learning learning the language of music is very important so from time to time we have to play a little more

serious games I have a game I like to call you know the note value or rudiment game and what that is is I have flashcards okay and the flashcards will have pictures of a quarter note a half

note the sticking of a paradiddle a chicken a flam yeah I said chicken okay if I think a chicken this is fun because it totally takes the seriousness out of it like I’ll be holding up these

flashcards you know and they go that’s all that’s a whole note now it’s a paradiddle sticking what there’s a picture of a chicken and I’m like yeah it’s chicken

I know laughs and some people find it really funny instead of a what the heck but it takes the serious inside of it so now it makes it fun and all of a sudden and every now and then will be something

else some random picture of a tricycle I picked these out of my kids flashcards from their school and it’s it’s just a lot of fun to get them realizing that because when they start to memorize how

music looks or how stickings of certain rudiments look it’s here right and they can see it away I know that and then if they don’t say they are unfamiliar with something like hold up the picture of

1/32 don’t rest they go oh what’s that and every now and then I will hold up something I know they don’t know okay so if it’s something they know and they don’t remember it I have to refresh so

we got to kind of go back a little bit so in the next lesson or the lesson on that day we need to rediscover or if it’s a thirty-second note rest never seen that before

oh this is something new we’re going to talk about at the end of the lesson or maybe next week so you can see that my games always turn into something that’s going to evolve into a lesson at some

point and there’s always a learning process it’s not just a big half-hour waste of time but I’ve always got such great feedback from playing these games with the student and I’ve had students

who come in say hey we play game today and I’ll say well I had something else in mind but if we have time at the end of the lesson maybe for the last five or ten minutes we’ll throw in a game and

it’s such a great part of anybody’s learning regardless of age or level so be sure to try out these games this wraps up the series and all the talk let’s we discussed I sure hope you guys

learned a lot and had a lot of fun I know I sure did and I hope to see you all real soon once again my name is Mike McHale Co good luck to you and take care everybody