commentary

,

Product Spotlight: Woodland Percussion Gong Drum!

,

One of the things we enjoy doing here at groove is turning young drummers into GREAT drummers and GREAT musicians.

One of the other things we really dig is spotlighting new or unusual instruments that you don't often get to see, like today.

The good people at Woodland Percussion were nice enough to loan us a 20" x 14" gong drum to review, and it was a BLAST to play. For more information about Woodland Percussion, click here.

NOTE: this is NOT a paid endorsement or advertisement.

If you are interested in studying percussion with Bryan at grooveKSQ, please click here.

You can follow grooveKSQ on Insta, Twitter and FB.

Join our email list by texting GROOVEKSQ to 66866 on your smartphone.

Enjoy!!!

,

Hello Sunday Morning!

,

Sundays and Mondays are big days around the studio here…and everyday I teach (and every day in fact), I practice what I preach to my students: GET THE STICKS IN YOUR HANDS EVERYDAY. There simply is no substitute for daily practice. Even if your practice sessions are on the shorter side, i.e. 20 minutes a day, the cumulative effect of practicing every day will become apparent over time.

In other words, practicing everyday yields more growth faster as a player.

Very much looking forward to seeing some of the students perform at Saturday’s recital….

,

Freestyle Improvisation on the Drumset

,

Structure is important in your rehearsal and your performances, and that is true of a performer on any instrument. Goals, lists, calendars are all tools to help keep you on a path towards achieving your performance goals.

But, one thing to keep in mind is the importance of freestyle improvisation on the drumset (or concert or marching snare, or piano, violin, etc., etc.). Letting your mind run free while your hands and feet create combinations seemingly on their own is extremely important to a musicians’ growth.

Freestyle improvisation is a great exercise for any drummer/percussionist out there building a solo piece for a performance or for an audition.

,

The Importance of Repetition With Purpose

,
The Importance of Repetition With Purpose

When you are pursuing any amount of technical ability on a musical instrument, there is no substitute for hard work. Hard work, though isn’t enough. Once you identify the skills you want to work on, you have to develop those skills through repetition.

After all, drumming has a huge physical component to it: the mechanics of the player’s hands, arms and fingers, posture, relaxation, grip…the list goes on and on. Those aspects of a student’s playing are refined through repetition, which is a decidedly unglamorous thing to talk about, but it is indeed the key to greatness.