First Lesson Today!

**Crusader** · 07-01-2013, 01:41 AM

Aint' it great!!!

**Drumbledore** · 07-01-2013, 03:40 AM

Originally Posted by sjshooter

Sorry for not updating... Life has been really busy. So busy, that I've had to really make an effort to squeeze in daily practice. But with just a couple of exceptions, I've been putting in 35-50 minutes a day, with a good 10 minutes of very boring warm up followed by mastering the week's lesson.

Week four came and we added eighth notes and half notes and buzz strokes. Week five added eighth notes with rests on the upbeats, and more rudiments, including the start of accenting our paradiddles. A lot of the work is just learning to read the various notations, especially notations that are basically synonymous when just playing a snare. So a lot of the notation I've been practicing has a lot of changes in the way it is written, but with the same beat coming out.

The fun thing is that each week, I start each lesson performing the piece I worked on all week. After proving mastery, we move on, and learn something new, and I struggle through the second half of the lesson trying to read the new stuff. I take it home, and for a couple of days, I struggle and/or skip-up at the same sections. By the middle of the week, I start to "get it", and even speed it up a bit before the next lesson. By the time I get to the next lesson, if I look back to the previous week, I have that down and wonder what was so hard. And then it repeats.

My progress has been amazing, at least to me. If you has put down a sheet of the snare pieces I am playing now, and told me in a month I'd be able to play by reading it, I'd have said you were crazy. Reading music was the most intimidating part about considering drum lessons. And it has been so easy. I am loving it.

So, mid-week now, I am still mastering eighth rests on the down and upbeats. I find that if I count the time or what I am reading out loud it is much easier. I am also able to sometimes play by reading without counting at all, just reading... but then if I lose it, I can't pick it back up.

Best of all, if I can master this lesson, then next week I will move from the snare to the full kit, which is very exciting for me. The practice pad is great, and recording myself on my vdrums snare has been great, but I am hungry to get on the drumset.

Nice one, SJS, sounds like you're progressing along pretty well. Sounds like you're getting the handle of it, speaking as a teacher myself. You sound like an ideal student....do your teacher proud!