Drum Lessons in Chanhassen, MN

Instruments: Piano Guitar Voice Violin Cello Viola Trumpet Trombone Saxophone Flute Clarinet Drums Bass Guitar Organ Synthesizer Accordion Banjo Ukulele Mandolin Recorder Electric Violin Fiddle Double Bass French Horn Tuba Piccolo Mallet Percussion Orchestral Percussion Oboe Bassoon English Horn Conga Music Keyboard Electric Guitar Classical Guitar Acoustic Guitar

I began teaching private lessons in 1989. My focus is to understand what learning style my students have and base my teaching methods on their individual needs. In college I studied pedagogies (teaching methods) for band, orchestra and majored in vocal and classroom education. Since achieving my degree in teaching kindergarten through 12th grade education, I have worked in Preschool, Elementary, Middle School, and High School settings as well with the elderly. Read More

Instruments: Piano Trumpet Trombone Saxophone Flute Clarinet Drums Piccolo

For beginning students, I generally start with the Accent on Achievment book series and spend the first few lessons assessing and addressing the important fundamentals of the students' particular instrument. After working out of the book for an apropriate amount of time, I introduce solo repertiore from both pop and classical genres. I want my students to learn, but I want them to have fun and enjoy what they are learning. Read More

Instruments: Drums Orchestral Percussion Latin Percussion

With a new student I always start by getting to know their abilities and experience with the drums or any other musical instrument up to this point and then go from there. With someone starting out with no experience I begin with basic match-grip technique, striking the drum, and some basic counting to get the fundamentals down. I generally use George Lawrence Stones Stick Control for the Snare Drummer to introduce various sticking patterns and the upstroke/downstroke concept. Read More

Instruments: Piano Trumpet Trombone Saxophone Flute Clarinet Drums Euphonium Mallet Percussion

I do expect regular practice outside of lessons; I do not want lessons to simply be a guided practice session. Ideally, students would fully prepare the assigned material for each lesson-- not that it needs to be perfect, but that I can tell that he or she has been working on it. For students who are clearly putting in a reasonable amount of effort, I reward them by writing out melodies of their favorite pop songs for them to learn to play. Read More

Instruments: Piano Guitar Drums Mallet Percussion Orchestral Percussion Conga Latin Percussion Music Keyboard Electric Guitar Djembe

Whatever type of music they are interested in playing, I find several examples to pull from that and use it as teaching material and relate it back to our foundational training. This keeps our lessons fun, engaging, and rewarding. For Drum set, I teach from Tommy Igoe's "Groove Essentials 1.0/2.0" and John Riley's "The Art of Bop Drumming". I encourage students to perform a recital but I like to stretch the definition of a "recital". Read More

Instruments: Guitar Drums Bass Guitar

My style of teaching is personal and caring. Whether my students develop a desire to pursue music beyond our lessons, I care about their happiness and personal success in life. I develop a relationship with my students and I really enjoy it when I hear that they used a concept I taught them in our music lessons for something beyond music. I at least hope to instill a strong understanding and enjoyment of music in each of my students which they can share with the people in their life. Read More