All the students come with slightly different goals. Some want to be in a rock band with their friends. Some want to audition for a music program at the college or university level. Some come to the studio just to have fun. Some put the work in to be professional players. ALL of these goals are legitimate, and I’ll help you move towards your goals - whatever those may be. The important thing here is that the teaching objectives are defined by the students.
The students undertake all this preparation: hand speed workouts, ear training, repertoire work, etc., so that when an opportunity presents itself, they are ready to step in and do a professional job.
The Dennis Chambers clinic was a terrific experience for our students and a lot of new friends who got a rare chance to see one of the best in the business up close.
Dennis talked a lot about the importance of playing with feel and groove versus showcasing your shops (i.e. playing as many notes as you can all the time).
Dennis performed with Oz Noy Trio later that evening to a sold out crowd and brought the house down.
One of the purposes of the July Practice Challenge was to accentuate the stress management/relaxation aspects of drumming.
A while back I posted a piece called: This is Your Brain on Drums: Clinical Study Reveals How Playing Drums Increases Brain Development. It’s worth a look when you have some time. Today, I saw this study from the Royal College of Music in London, UK which supports the theory that group drumming decreases anxiety, depression and increases social resilience and inflammatory immune response. There’s a lot packed into that last sentence - reread that one!
The study put study participants in group drumming classes for 6 and 10 week courses. Here is a summary of the study’s findings:
In conclusion, this study demonstrates that group drumming can reduce depression and anxiety and improve social resilience in mental health service users over a 6- and 10-week spans. Changes in psychological profiles were found in parallel with reductions in inflammatory response and a shift towards an anti-inflammatory immune profile, in keeping with other successful mental health interventions.
You can read the entire study here.
In the final video of the July Practice Challenge, Bryan talks about the two goals behind the Challenge, and also there’s a bit of philosophy of why the studio exists and how it helps its members, beginners or advanced.
This past week, one of the giants of rock drumming, Alan White, passed away. He was one of my favorites, and had an extraordinary career. We talked about his work in this month’s Virtual Drum Hang.
While his story has been capably told elsewhere, a few highlights should be noted. Mr. White was one of the few musicians (possibly the only drummer) to have recorded with two Beatles in their solo careers, having appeared on John Lennon’s Imagine and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass.
At age 20, Mr. White was famously recruited over the phone by John Lennon to play in a concert in Toronto with the Plastic Ono Band. They rehearsed on the plane from London to Toronto for the gig. The guitar player in that band? Some guy named Eric Clapton. The result was an album entitled Live Peace in Toronto 1969. You can read more here. You can hear Mr. White’s trademark huge flams on the live version of Give Peace a Chance from that recording.
However, what Mr. White was famous for was his 50 years of dynamic, powerful and imaginative playing behind the drumset with English progressive rock giants Yes. Below is a playlist of what I consider to be his top 5 recorded studio performances.
