Overview

Over the next few weeks I will be tutoring a complete beginner, with no previous theoretical or practical experience in my specialist instrument (Drum Kit). My overall aim by the end of our lessons is to have the student at a level which most would class as ‘beginner’, as well as making sure that the student has a sense of accomplishment. Another goal that I wish to achieve by the end of our few lessons, is to do the best that I can to inspire them to continue developing their skills within this instrument, whether this be remotely, or through the aid of continuing tuition. Most of all however, I would like to create a positive learning environment that encourages questions, freedom to make mistakes and an overall good student-teacher relationship.

Lesson Planning

Lesson 1

Upon meeting my student, I will politely introduce myself whilst welcoming them in a calm manner, immediately establishing a friendly environment. This can be crucial to securing the students’ comfortability level for the foreseeable future, as well as being proven to increase productivity within lessons. An article by ‘The Cross-Eyed Pianist’ when speaking on methods within one to one music lessons says “It is important that we like our students – and vice versa – regardless of their musical abilities. Such mutual regard enables us to work better together because we demonstrate that we value our students as human beings and recognise that each one is different. In doing so, we can tailor our teaching to suit each student individually.” (Cross-Eyed Pianist. 2016). This, coming from a well established professional within instrumental tuition, is testament to just how important it is to get along with your student. This is because as well as helping the student to understand your teaching methods, it also allows you to understand the ways in which the student learns.

Following on from our initial introduction, I would like to continue by showing the student the correct way to hold the sticks, or ‘grip’. This will allow them to play both correctly and healthily for the remainder of our lessons. I plan an teaching ‘matched grip’ as it is typically the easiest initial grip to learn.

After the student feels comfortable with all of the previously mentioned, I plan to teach them basic rhythm, and rhythmic terms within drumming. These will only extend to the likes of quavers, semi-quavers and crotchets for this first lesson, and I will help the student to visualise these with printed examples, one of which I will insert below.

Finally, to end this opening lesson I will ask the student to play some of these basic notations on the snare drum if I believe they are ready. I will play a metronome alongside this, to give the student a sense of timing, and really help them to understand that rhythm and timing play such a huge part when learning the basics of drums.

Lesson 2

Moving onto our second lesson together, I would like to start off by recapping the happenings of the last lesson. This will only be brief, and take more than two to three minutes, however has been proven by multiple studies to transfer short term memories. This happens when work from over a week ago is reiterated as the student is now thinking about and remembering this work which they otherwise would have forgotten about, training their brain to remember these basics every time they play the instrument.

Next, I would like to try to challenge the student slightly, by teaching them to play a simple 4/4 beat. This will be made up of consistent quavers on the Hi-Hats, whilst playing a kick drum on the first beat of every bar, and a snare drum on the third. This will challenge the student slightly, as it will be their first time utilising three of their limbs at once whilst playing drums. However this will be a good thing, as it should greatly develop their limb independence when practised regularly.

After the student is comfortable with the overall groove, I will ask them to play it to a metronome of around eighty to one-hundred beats per minute (depending on their stability and ability). After assessing the groove and giving them some pointers to further progress it, I will then introduce each individual part of the kit to them, so that they feel more familiar with their surroundings. This will also give them added opportunity for artistic creation, in that rather me telling them what to play, they can add to their groove, or even create their own with the added tools they will have in their locker. After teaching the student how to play each individual piece of the kit, I plan to then encourage them to play their previously learned groove followed by a simple single stroke fill, either on the snare drum or around the kit. This is also designed to give the student a sense of accomplishment and development, as they are putting the two main parts which they have learned so far together. This should bring us to around the end of our second lesson, and so I will wish the student a good week and offer any additional support if needed, to further solidify a comfortable teaching environment for them.

Lesson 3

Moving onto my third and final lesson with the student, I would like to mainly recap what has been learned in the previous two lesson. This may seem unproductive, however it has been proven time and time again that it is not helpful to either the student or the teacher for something new to be taught every single lesson. This is because it is easy for a student to become overwhelmed when being given too much information.

To do this, I will ask the student to play the basic 4/4 groove that they will have previously learned, again to a metronome. To avoid completely repeating previous lessons however, once they have recalled and played this correctly, I will increase the beats per minute of the metronome in order to challenge them slightly. This also helps the student to visualise their progress, upon seeing that they are playing the same thing, yet at a higher tempo than ever before. I will then ask them to play the single stroke fill after every three bars of playing that they had previously learned, also to a higher tempo.

For the remainder of the lesson, I will ask the student if there is anything in particular that they would like to learn. This is a good teaching technique to utilise every so often, as it is a great way of clearly reminding and communicating to the student that you are there to meet their learning needs, as opposed to them just learning whatever you would like them to.

Teaching

Lesson 1

Upon meeting my beginner student (Chantelle) I pleasantly introduced myself and asked her a couple of ice breaker questions (how has your week been, what have you been up to today etc.). I then introduced the drum kit and corresponding tools, after asking if she had ever played drums before. Starting with the kit itself, I decided to only introduce the parts that Chantelle would be using today, in order to not overwhelm her with too much information at first. (These being the kick drum, the snare drum and the Hi-Hats). I then introduced the drum sticks, as well as the stool and how to adjust the hight if necessary.

Moving onto actual teaching, I began as planned by teaching her the correct stick grip. I chose to teach what is known as ‘matched grip’ first, as it is commonly know as the easiest to learn for a beginner due to its simple nature. The name ‘matched’ is given to this specific grip, as both sticks are held identically with each hand. This is also more efficient when working with limited teaching time, as it prevents having to teach a different grip technique for each hand, as they are mirrored. I made sure to use ‘Vic Firth’ 5A sticks for this tutorial as it can be difficult for a beginner student to learn where to keep your thumb on the stick whilst playing, also known as the ‘balance point’. Vic Firth sticks however, always have an American flag exactly on the balance point of each stick, making this aspect of learning easier for the student. Below is an image of the exact types of sticks I used for reference.

After Chantelle was comfortable with the correct stick grip, I began to teach her to to play the snare drum. At first I spent a minute or so showing how much force and resistance to play the drum with, in order to get one clean stroke. This is extremely useful for beginner players to learn before moving on, as it ensures that that their hits do not sound either echoed (when the drum is played with too much force, causing an unwanted second hit) or oppositely hesitant (when the drum is played hesitantly, resulting in a note that is weak sounding.) After she was able to play the snare drum with consistent dynamics, I taught Chantelle to play a single stroke roll. This is when the player alternates hands after each hit, resulting in a ‘Right, Left, Right, Left’ sticking. I decided to first teach this rudiment to a metronome that was set to one-hundred beats per minute, at crotchet timing. I explained to Chantelle that this meant that she would be playing one note per beat. Below is a recording from this point in our first lesson, showing Chantelle playing a single stroke roll on the snare drum.

Chantelle seemed to pick this up quite quickly. We later spoke and she explained how as a piano player, she uses a lot of the same terminology, and so understood what I was asking her to play with ease. After seeing her stay in time to a good level whilst playing crotchets at one-hundred beats per minute, I asked her to play quavers. However upon doing so, explained that I would be lowering the beats per minute down to eighty in order to not push her too hard with it being her first lesson. She once again played these really well, and so I decided to try something a little harder, this being triplets. I kept the beats per minute at eighty, and explained that she would be playing three notes per beat this time, also known as ‘triplets’. It definitely helped here that Chantelle had a background in another instrument because although Piano is not as rhythm based as drums, you could certainly tell that she had a deep understanding of crotchets, quavers and triplets, as she once again played the triplets with superb accuracy for a beginner. I made sure to tell her as we went along the things that she was doing well. First of all I mentioned that it was really good instincts for her to naturally lead with her dominant (right) hand. I also mentioned after she had finished that you could tell that she was staying in time really well because it was almost impossible to hear the metronome, as the notes completely covered it. This also doubles as a good tip when practising, as there is no one else there to tell you how your timing is.

With a short amount of time remaining of our first lesson, I challenge Chantelle to play a simple 4/4 groove. I had not planned on teaching this today as this is normally relatively advanced for a short first lesson, however she had done surprisingly well with the first couple of tasks and decided to push her a little further. Just in case of this, I had a print-out of simplified notation too help her visualise this groove before playing. Below is a video of Chantelle learning this groove, and the print-out that I used.

I started by having her play one handed quaver beats on the Hi-Hats. This was then developed by having Chantelle play a kick drum note on the first beat of the bar, and a snare drum note on the third. This is a well proven method of teaching a groove, as it eases the student into it rather than being overwhelmed by learning all three parts at once. She again played this really well, considering it was her first time playing the instrument. I gave her another compliment in that she played the Hi-Hats with every snare beat, as this is something beginners often struggle to comprehend at first. I also mentioned half way through that she could maybe play the Hi-Hat a little harder, which she carried on to do successfully. This brought us to the end of our first lesson together, and so I said goodbye, and wished Chantelle a good week until I saw her next.

Lesson 2

Moving onto our second lesson together, I started by recapping our results from last lesson. I did this by asking Chantelle to briefly play the groove that she learned at the end of our previous lesson to the best of her memory. It took her a little time get back to how she was playing it the week before, but it did not take her much time to get there. There is a video of this inserted below.

After this brief recap, I decided that it would be worth spending some time teaching Chantelle about the rest of the kit, what each individual piece does, when to use it and how to play it. This is because there is only so much you can learn knowing how to play just three pieces of the kit, and now that she is comfortable with these three pieces it is not too overwhelming to introduce her to everything else. Below is two videos of me introducing Chantelle to the rest of the drum kit, as well as a visual printout to help her understand in a different way if needed.

I next decided to teach Chantelle a basic single stroke roll, which was part of my lesson plan however not quite this early. She was doing quite well with playing a groove in time to a metronome so far, and so I thought it would be a good idea to put together the groove and a fill at the end. I constructed this in a way that was relatively simple to understand, asking her to play three bars of groove, followed by one bar of single strokes on the snare drum. There is a video recording of this below.

Chantelle played this fill really well at first, considering that it can be quite difficult for beginners to transfer from a groove to a fill without much previous practice. This drew our second lesson to a close, and so I told Chantelle that she had played really well today, and that I look forward to developing her lesson further in our final lesson. This is shown below.

Lesson 3

Moving onto our third and final lesson together, I really wanted to stick for my lesson plan here. I definitely think that over the past couple of short lessons Chantelle has learned so much new information, that the best course of action here would be to mainly recap and solidify in her mind what she had previously learned. We spent some time further solidifying what she had learned and played in our previous lesson, however advanced this groove and fill and transferred it around the kit. We first transferred this groove over to the ride cymbal, ensuring that she played with the tip of the stick to get the best sound out of it. After this, I had Chantelle move back over to the Hi-Hats, however utilising the crash cymbal at the start of every four bars. I will leave a recording of this whole development process below.

For the remainder of our final lesson, I asked Chantelle if there was anything in particular that she would like to learn. Rather than playing, she wanted to talk and ask for some advice to further develop her drumming after our time together was up. I welcomed this request, and told her that any questions were valid. We first talked about what she should be practising in order to stay sharp. To this I responded by recommending the purchase of a practise pad, as they are not too expensive and extremely useful for developing technique at any level. I continued to tell Chantelle that I would we happy to send her over some material to practise with, even after our time together had come to a close. I ended the lesson by asking if she had any additional questions for me, to which she responded no. I told her that she could come to me if she needed any additional advice or teaching in the future within the instrument, and that I had really enjoyed working with her and developing her playing. This was the end of our teaching.

Conclusion

Overall, I am very happy with how my first real teaching experience went. I stuck to my lesson plans to a reasonable amount, without ruling out the opportunity to improvise when needed and adapt to the learning styles of my student. For example, I felt it necessary to stick to my lesson plan of mainly recapping in the final lesson, as Chantelle had learned so much over the previous two and did not want to overwhelm her. However, I moved on to teaching her a simple groove in just the first lesson instead of the second as I had planned, due to the fact that she had done better than expected on the first couple of techniques. Another aspect that I feel I executed quite well, is praising and keeping an overall positive learning environment. For example, in our first lesson I told Chantelle that the timing of her single stroke roll was really good, and also that she had good instincts to naturally lead with her right hand. This helps the student to feel comfortable within our lessons, further maximising their gain from our time together

Although I am happy with my overall teaching, I do think that there are a few little aspects that I would change, given this opportunity again. One of which for example is that during our first lesson, I forgot to mention to Chantelle that she needed to keep her left foot on the HI-Hat peddle. This is not a huge thing, not mentioning something to a beginner because it may seem ‘obvious’ to you, can cause for the student to feel that the instrument is not right for them, and put them off even while they are still learning the basics. Another, subtle mistake that I made, was not bringing two sets or ear protection for our first lesson. As someone who frequently works with other musicians, I usually only have to worry about bring ear protection for myself, and so for our first lesson together I gave Chantelle my headphones and I was left unprotected.

I did however fix both of these errors by the beginning of our second lesson, and I am sure that given additional teaching opportunities I will develop my teaching methods even further.

Bibliography

Chu, D., & Nguyen, H. (2022). Recapping: effective pedagogy to ensure inclusivity and optimise learning and teaching experiences. Compass Journal of Learning and Teaching, 15(2), 44–58. https://doi.org/10.21100/compass.v15i2.1261

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Mathew, D. (2021, 7 March). The Repercussions of Percussion – Don Mathew, MD FAAPMR – 3/7/21. Modern Drummer Magazine. https://www.moderndrummer.com/2021/03/the-repercussions-of-percussion-don-mathew-md-faapmr-3-7-21/

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Pianist, C. (2016, 4 October). A special relationship. The Cross-Eyed Pianist. https://crosseyedpianist.com/2016/01/30/a-special-relationship/

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Rhythm notation. (2023, 17 March). BBC Bitesize. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zs9wk2p/revision/2

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Roy, Dr. P. K. (2025, 14 March). Medium. Why Teachers Should Encourage Students to Step Out of Their Comfort Zone?

https://medium.com/mr-plan-publication/why-teachers-should-encourage-students-to-step-out-of-their-comfort-zone-762a8fe14d7b

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Vic Firth, Vic Firth 5A

https://muzikercdn.com/uploads/products/10603/1060339/main_d06a69af.jpg