Christopher C
Instruments: Drums, Orchestral Percussion
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Rock, Funk, Swing, Bossa Nova, Marching Band

My Teaching experience really started just after graduating high school working with my School's marching band. Although this was not an official position until more recently, my time volunteering surrounded me with successful educators who I observed and learned from. A more recent teaching experience for myself was teaching the University of Maine's (Orono) marching band and percussion section. For one week I worked closely with the a group of 15 students developing skills in percussion while teaching material to be played at school football games. Currently, I am a member of the Raider's drum and Bugle Corp's (Burlington, NJ) percussion staff. The raiders are an open class DCI group that competes in the summer against other open class groups. My job duties include running rehearsals, providing weekly assignments to members, and providing individualized critique and information for students. This ensemble meets once a month from November to April then moving to every weekend, and then eventually a 3-4 week long tour over the summer. Most Recently, I started working for Belchertown Public Schools. As a substitute teacher for all grade levels, I am able to interact with many different students with many different needs and situations.

For teaching any person percussion/ drums there are very many different skill sets to be developed and understood. Reading music, playing with appropriate technique, and foot to hand coordination all make up the universe which is percussion. Starting a young percussionist there would be usually two components of the lesson. The first would be Technique and One surface drumming (Reading Basic Rhythms and music notation). The second half of a lesson would be working on the designated percussion instrument of the student's preference. For example, a first lesson for a student who wishes to play drum set would include half of the time spent learning how to hold drum sticks and reading basic time signatures/ clefts and the second half learning a standard drum set "beat". As time goes by and the student progress the same system works but the objectives become more detailed.