Our Sibling, The Rhythmist

This studio and its mission constitute a huge part of my work life. The studio’s mission is the advancement of the students’ skills as musicians, drummers, and also as people. All the traits that we work on in developing drumming skills - patience, discipline, focus, creativity - directly carry over to other phases of life. grooveKSq’s blog space and social media channels are about the students, not about me or anyone else that teaches here. It’s about the students.

NOW A Word About Our Sibling, The Rhythmist

There is a newsletter/magazine that I have been developing for several years on Substack, entitled The Rhythmist. You could consider it grooveKSq’s sibling publication.  The model is direct to your email in box, without any bots or pixels following you around on the web to sell you things.  No ads, no nonsense, just quality right to your inbox. The website interface is also fantastic, providing a clean user experience with no ads, banners or distractions.  

The purpose of The Rhythmist is below:

Quality, thought provoking writing about music creation, recording, album and concert reviews, travel essays, and fiction from Bryan Tuk and others.

There are some good, independent writers out there, but they are few and far between. The legacy publishing industry has imploded. The Rhythmist is a magazine that I would want to read, attempting to combine what Rolling Stone once was combined with some other favorite publications of yesteryear. There is a free tier, and a paid tier for $7 per month that gives you access to everything in The Rhythmist.

I like to keep my personal writing/messaging separate from the studio, because again - the studio is not about me, it is about the students. If you get the weekly groove notes, I have added you to The Rhythmist - it is free and you can opt out at any time. I truly hope you stay and support the magazine project because that will support other independent writers as The Rhythmist grows into what I hope it can be.

Sign up for The Rhythmist below.

Thanks for your support,

-BT

Recording Improvements in the Studio

Spent some time this evening getting the 4 piece set up dialed in with the recording software... this is the set up that the students here use and our production value on the student recordings is now much higher than before.

To get the full effect, use good headphones when you watch this!

Always striving to be better in every facet. Always forward.

When a Little Frustration is a Good Thing...

Frustration is something that we ALL encounter in different phases of life.  It could be work, it could be school, it could be something personal.  It does happen to everyone.

Frustration, in some ways, is a positive thing, and I’ll explain why in one minute. 

From a teacher’s standpoint, the level of a student’s frustration is something that I pay very close attention to.  There is hard work, and there is fun.  

We want to balance the hard work aspect of studying an instrument with the FUN aspect of studying an instrument.  There should always be some of both to keep the student engaged and moving forward. 

Why is a little frustration a positive thing?

Because it shows that the Student cares about what they are doing and they want to do a good job and they are willing to spend the energy required to do a good job.  That is a huge positive. 

If you ever have any questions about this or other aspects of the studio, please email me or DM me.  Thanks for your support.  

Got Pro Audio? Now you do!

The studio is proud to announce an expansion of our services: commercial audio production.  The workstation makeover was done in part to facilitate this.  With the addition of the first of several Electro Voice RE-20s (pictured), the studio now has vocal production capabilities on par with broadcast radio and television. 

If you have needs for professional voice overs, or are interested in learning podcasting or are a spoken word artist, or are interested in creating audio content for your business website or business content, contact us to talk about your project.  We can produce audio content with male or female voice talent in English and in Spanish.

Our production portfolio is available upon request. 

First Take Challenge: Alex Z. "Easy Money" (Billy Joel)

Working drummers often have to learn songs quickly, and then perform them well for an audience. This is a skill set that we work on here at grooveKSQ. Watch the video to see this concept in action!

What is Rhythmic Dictation?

A musician’s ears are every bit as important as their hands and feet and technical ability to produce musical notes on their instrument. Here at grooveKSQ, we focus on ear training quite a bit because sharp ears to a musician are what a sharp palette is to a chef: incredibly useful!

How do we strengthen a student’s listening skills? One method is the use of rhythmic dictation exercises.

Rhythmic Dictation (“RD”) is one of the skill sets that intermediate and advanced students work on here at the studio. Quite simply, RD is the process of 1) hearing a rhythm blind (i.e. the student is using their ears only, not their eyes to process information), 2) decoding that rhythm in their head, and 3) writing that rhythm down with good musical notation. This type of ear training is generally not taught in high school music classes in the way it is here at the studio in terms of the level of difficulty. As an added bonus, not only does this process strengthen the ears, but a happy byproduct is the students get to work on their notation as well.

Ear training (or aurals) is a required subject in every undergrad music education program. For those students studying marimba/vibraphone here, we can work on melodic and harmonic dictation also.

That time AJ went 6 for 6 on his first rhythmic dictation exercise. Perfect scores go up on the studio fridge.