Introduction

Teaching a fellow student over the last semester has positively altered the way I thought you had to teach. I’ve ended up teaching more than one student, initially teaching Matt, then with the addition of Nate as well as a one off with Danny. Some of these lessons were taught in a group setting, which pushed my teaching further to facilitate everybody. Despite all of them having zero drumming experience beforehand, each person was different to teach, as they all picked up things at different speeds, they had different priorities in lessons and different abilities in being able to keep time. This made for each lesson to be unique even when the same content was being taught.

First lesson: Setting up the kit

Preparing and heading into my first lesson with Matt, I knew that I wanted to strike a balance between learning how to set up the kit, how to hold the stick and how to play a basic drumbeat. I felt it was valuable for Matt in his own personal practice, to know how to set up the cymbals and the drum kit, along with how to get your drum stool at the right height. These skills, despite not being as exciting as playing the drums, are vital for any pupil to learn the drums, as Matt can’t practise if he can’t set up the drum kit. Furthermore, it sets Matt up with good habits, enabling him to play better and preventing potential injuries in the future from improper technique. (School of Rock, n.d.) It will enable him to enjoy and explore playing the drums in his own time.

While learning how to set up the cymbals, I thought it was important for Matt to know the names of each cymbal as part of the drum kit, which I pointed are helpfully written on the cymbals themselves. I wanted to further his knowledge of how the kit works, as it can be overwhelming when first asked to set up a kit by yourself. (School of Rock, n.d.) On reflection when teaching where each cymbal went, I could have provided some word association with each cymbal name. For example, the ride cymbal being on your right side, can be remembered by the fact that the words ride and right begin with the letter “r”. Or that the hi hat could be remembered by the historical fact that it used to be called a “sock cymbal” because it is played with the left foot. (Modern Drummer, 2012) Providing the information that the ride is the bigger cymbal with the crash being smaller, meaning the ride goes on the right, relies heavily on the pupil just remembering. Word association can really aid in remembering, with it being used in everyday life such as remembering long lists, as well as a musical context. (Mack, 2018)

I wanted to let Matt experiment with how the hi hat and the clutch work together to enable a curiosity for how the instrument works. Matt surprised me with how interested he was in setting up the drums and how many questions he asked about it, throughout all our lessons together. This was due to myself having a preconception that when you learn any instrument, you just want to play the instrument as soon as possible, which is why I had the aim to keep that side of the lesson shorter. Recognising this interest in the technicalities of how the drum kit works, resulted in me spending more time encouraging this interest. Being adaptable and implementing adaptive learning into teaching is important as it aids the pupils progress, due to matching the pupil’s needs better. (Eaton, 2022)

When it came to teaching Matt how to hold drum sticks and how to set up the stool, I taught him in a show and copy/demonstrative way. It made me realise that the drums themselves and teaching them are very visual, due to the size of each drum with the sounds all being different. These thoughts prompted me in thinking how to teach the drums in a way that wasn’t show and copy, the way I was taught the drums, which can be limiting the more advanced you get at the instrument. There are many other pedagogical approaches such as Dalcroze Eurythmics, which involves physical movement and music, so I began exploring these concepts. (Dalcroze UK, n.d.)

First lesson: Learning a basic drumbeat

The main components you are learning and developing when playing your first drumbeat are rhythm and coordination. (Bloom, 2016) The way that I helped Matt work on both of these elements, with the main aim being  to play a drumbeat, was by breaking down what each limb was doing and playing each of these elements separately before slowly combining them together. The connection between understanding what needs to be done, and the motor function is not immediate so breaking it down helps with this. (Lacey, n.d.) Due to Matt being an experienced bassist and musician, I didn’t need to explain what different rhythms are when explaining that he needed to play quavers with his right hand on the hi hat. (Musical U, n.d.) This made it easier to teach him that the bass drum is played on beats 1 and 3, whereas the snare is played on beats 2 and 4. I deemed it important to count and click a pair of sticks  together while he was playing and working out coordination, as it helps having an external metronome to solidify what he’s playing. Having a metronome playing is important as it ensures consistency and with the aim of rhythmic perfection. (Joubert, 2023) As I counted, I accented the beats that Matt needed to play, such as 1 and 3, with both my voice but also with the small action of leaning forward. Despite being in his periphery, it would’ve aided him having visual stimuli on beats 1 and 3. This incorporates both auditory and visual learning, which having the combination of the two, furthers his comprehension for what he is learning. (Smart Side OT, n.d.)

First lesson: Encouragement

Reflecting and watching back my first lesson, one of the things that I got right was my encouragement and enthusiasm towards Matt. Encouragement leads to accelerated learning, which allows the pupil to go through material at a quicker pace, with a deeper and more grounded understanding about what it is they are doing. (K12 Tutoring, n.d.) My encouragement came from a place of real excitement, having remembered the feeling of achievement and joy when I first learnt how to play the basic drumbeat. To end the lesson, I made sure to give Matt lots of praise; by pointing out all the good things he had achieved throughout the lesson, which will hopefully empower him as he goes away from the lesson to want to go and practise more.

Second lesson: Group teaching

Going into my second lesson, I had a plan for what I was going to be teaching Matt, which was reconsolidating our knowledge of the basic drumbeat and to see if we can start developing it further. However, a fellow student, Nate, was asked to join in with our lessons, meaning I had to adapt to teaching multiple people at once. This act of group teaching I found very difficult and was unsure how to teach them both at the same time, considering there was only one drum kit and with Nate not knowing how to play the drums. My lack of preparedness for the lesson showed in my lack of confidence for what I was teaching and a hesitation in what I was doing, which resulted in me not teaching or explaining concepts to the best of my ability.

Having reflected on this, what I would’ve done differently is take out playing drum kit completely and replace it by playing the drums on our laps. While doing this, I would’ve encouraged them to count aloud as we play the basic drumbeat, using our laps as a hi hat and snare, with our right foot tapping as a bass drum. These skills would be transferrable to kit and counting aloud during this process further allows them to make those connections and solidify their coordination and rhythm. (HarpMastery, 2017) When teaching beginner level drums, a lot can be done in this format instead of on the drum set. My approach for what I taught instead, was to get Matt to recollect what we had done previously. This act of me asking Matt, “so can you remember from last lesson how to play a basic drumbeat,” not only helps consolidate this information for Matt by explaining it aloud but it also demonstrates to Nate what we learnt and how we went about doing it. Alongside this approach, I would ask questions directed to Nate to gauge the level of drumming he was already at, which fortunately happened to be at a beginner level too. If Nate had more experience in playing the drums, it would’ve made it more challenging to teach to two people with very different experience levels simultaneously.

Third lesson: Multi-sensory learning

Going into my third lesson (my second just with Matt), I made the realisation that our aim, requested by Matt, to play the drums on Red Clay by Freddie Hubbard, was too difficult of an aim considering the limited lessons that we had. I felt in the time we had; it was more important on continuing to build a foundation of drumming. In time it would’ve eventually led to being able to play Red Clay, if we continued with lessons beyond this assignment and if Matt had practised more consistently outside of our lessons. The aim for the lesson became, learning three essential drum rudiments (singles, doubles and paradiddles) and incorporating these rudiments into a drum fill.

As well as thinking about changing our aim, I wanted to have a conversation with Matt to see what learning he suited, whether he was an auditory, visual, reading/writing or a kinaesthetic learner, incorporating multi-sensory learning. (Main, 2026) This came from me wanting to expand my drum teaching from a demonstrative approach, with the drums being a visual instrument. After having a conversation with Matt to see what he knows about rudiments already and them being the drumming equivalent to scales (Maldonado, 2017), I discussed whether it would be helpful seeing what a sticking of these rudiments looked like in writing, with a sticking simply referring to which hands plays each note. (DasGupta, 2022)

This was a way of seeing whether visual learning was helpful for him when learning stick patterns. As someone who could find remembering how to play a different sticking by someone audibly saying right left right right left right left left difficult, I deemed it important to see if Matt preferred a different way of teaching to this. Despite Matt being happy with auditory learning, I still felt it was important to ask this question as I want to accelerate Matt’s learning and to gauge how Matt may work best in future lessons.

Fourth lesson: Mnemonics and lesson plans

As it turned out, I ended up teaching the same lesson to Nate separately on another occasion, which enabled me to make changes and think about how to teach rudiments with different devices and mnemonics which enables pupils to remember and retrieve information easier. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln, n.d.) For example, I described playing doubles in lesson with Nate as mama dada. When it came to teaching rudiments with Nate, I gave him a way of remembering each rudiment, such as singles being one of each note alternating, doubles being two of each before switching and paradiddles when sounded out slowly sound like the pattern of RLRR LRLL. Furthermore, I utilised metaphors to describe and incorporate imagination into the lesson, such as describing playing a crash with the bass drum at the end of fill as being a full stop at the end of sentence. Incorporating imagination into music and practice is vital because if Nate learnt drums further, imagination will be easier to incorporate into his composing, performing and listening, due to relating music to imagination early on. (Music Education Now, 2018) Despite using devices with my lesson with Matt, I think the addition of mnemonics and further memory devices, made my lesson with Nate more effective, and hopefully as a result, the lesson more enjoyable. Fine tuning my lesson plan with Nate, allowed me to remember and see the changes which I made, which you can see in my lesson plan with Nate below.

Name of Student:		Nate Tozer-Loft			Name of Tutor	Callum Bailey
Date	15/4/26	Time	9:00-9:30am	Room	211

Aims	To learn what the 3 main rudiments are (singles, doubles and paradiddles) and be able to play them. To learn what a drum fill is and how to play a drum fill with the rudiments learnt in the lesson.
Objectives	Describing to Nate what the stickings of rudiment are and getting Nate to play them on the snare. Playing a drumbeat for 3 bars followed by a bar of a fill. Playing the fills as semi-quavers and using one of each rudiment each time.
Extension If the learner progresses particularly well they may also be able to:	If Nate plays the drum fill with ease, he could change what rudiment he plays during the fill, rather than playing just one rudiment for the whole fill. We could also think about different ways of orchestrating it on the drum kit.

Time	Activities	Assessment Methods	Resources
5 mins	Starting off with a general check in of how the pupil is doing. Informing Nate that the aims of the lesson have moved away from Red Clay due to it being too complicated to learn. Setting out that we are going to focus on more of the building blocks of drumming Tell Nate that we are going to be focusing on rudiments and fills for this lesson	No need for any assessment methods for this part of the lesson	Drum stools to sit on Practice room

Time (approx)	Activities	Assessment Methods	Resources
10 mins	Main lesson The first part is focusing on rudiments. Asking Nate if he knows what rudiments are, to uncover what he already might know. Describe rudiments based off the information Nate has provided Go through explaining each rudiment (singles, double and paradiddles), providing mnemonics, metaphors and word association to help Nate remember what the stickings are. Between explaining each of the stickings, get Nate to play each one and get comfortable with the coordination between the two hands.   The second part of the lesson is to incorporate rudiments into fills, consolidating these patterns and putting them into the context of playing the drums. Teaching Nate that fills tend to be a bar long and act as a transition or provide some excitement, with the often ending with a crash and bass drum, acting as a full stop (use of metaphor to help Nate remember to use a crash at the end of a fill). After explaining we are going to play a bar of a fill after 3 bars of a basic drumbeat, to consolidate how to play this, Nate will play these rudiments as semi-quavers going clockwise around the drum kit, focusing on one rudiment each time. Use a metronome to help Nate keep in time as he executes these fills. Make sure to provide lots of praise for when Nate has completed these and as he works out how to play it. Reminding Nate of technique when appropriate and applicable.	Due to it being our second lesson together, formative assessment will be used as we haven’t learnt anything substantial enough for it to be summative. Encouraging Nate when he has played something that we are working on right, while providing pointers for things that he may have got right, to help him improve quicker. Making sure to keep an eye on technique as Nate doesn’t want to learn bad habits early on.	Drum kit Drum stool Practice room Drumsticks for both the student and pupil Aux cable to connect laptop to speaker to provide a metronome (on reflection I should’ve got this) Practice pad for me to demonstrate rudiments and play along with Nate

Time	Activities	Assessment Methods	Resources
5 mins	End of the Lesson Further encouragement for how well he’s done this lesson. Practice activities for next time: practice rudiments, which can be done without a kit and can just be done my tapping on your legs. Further practice what we’ve gone over in the lesson to become more comfortable with playing the drumbeat, fills and rudiments.	No need for any assessment methods for this part of the lesson.	No further resources needed for this section of the lesson.

Video to go with lesson plan

Third lesson: Importance of metronomes and counting

Returning to talk about my second lesson with Matt, when it came to describing how to play the fill using the rudiments we learnt, I was thinking about the best way to help count semi-quavers to help Matt internalise what rhythm to play. My first drum teacher explained rhythms using word metaphors, with semi-quavers being sounded out as coca cola. I wanted to incorporate this into my counting for when he was playing, which when asked, Matt agreed. As part of asking whether using coca cola was helpful, me and Matt were laughing about how counting with 1e+a can still be scary. This element of humour incorporated into the lesson, hopefully will help Matt feel more relaxed and bold while playing and learning the drums, because when first starting out learning an instrument, it can feel quite vulnerable to get things wrong. (Vibe Music Academy, 2022)

As we reached a point of playing the drumbeat followed by a bar of fill, I opted towards acting as a human metronome by tapping crotchets with my two sticks, while counting out coca cola. I lacked preparedness to bring an actual metronome for Matt so we had to make do with me counting and tapping, which I think can sometimes be beneficial having a person counting as it gives a bit of leeway if needed when the pupil is struggling to grasp the timing. Metronomes are incredibly important when it comes to practicing, as it provides an auditory stimuli of what the time and tempo is, with it being difficult to keep time when working something out. (STAR Intiative, n.d.)
However, a balance needs to be made, as Matt expressed that he found there to be a pressure when I counted in. Taking away my counting resulted in the time slipping, which meant I had to find a balance in helping him out with counting but also respecting his point of feeling the pressure. Without wanting to disregard what Matt was feeling, I deemed keeping time important in that moment, so subtly brought in my “human metronome”, which helped Matt’s timing more.

Conclusion

Over the last semester, as a teacher I felt like I learning alongside the pupil as well, but in a way that was thinking about how to improve the teaching experience for Matt and Nate. Teaching these lessons has been really valuable learning to consider for when I teach future pupils, as it has allowed me to make mistakes and think about how to teach differently. It’s important for teaching to not be static, being adaptable instead and with that flexibility hopefully comes with more fun for the teacher and pupil.

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