David H
Instruments: Drums, Orchestral Percussion
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock, Blues, Folk, Country, R&B, Gospel, Musical Theater, Latin, Funk, Hip Hop, Soul

I've taught privately for over 30 years and have been teaching from my home studio in South Pasadena since 1994. Everyone who studies with me deserves as thorough a musical education as I can give them. I discuss both short and long term objectives with all new students (or their parents) before the first lesson. While it’s important for the teacher – not the student – to establish the course of study, I believe that sticking to a rigid ideology is a mistake. I always consider each student’s strengths, weaknesses, and learning style and tailor my lessons accordingly. Some people are visual learners, some auditory, others kinesthetic or experiential. Everyone processes information in his or her own way, and an experienced teacher understands exactly what a student needs when they need it. It takes many years of teaching to learn this, by the way.  

I primarily use original material when I teach, but occasionally I’ll work from standard method books such as Stick Control, Master Studies, and Syncopation, or assign pages from more recent books like John Riley’s The Art of Bop Drumming. I’ll also pull out books specifically for sight reading such as Anthony Cirone’s Portraits in Rhythm. For beginning and intermediate students I focus on fundamental technique, basic sight reading skills, and drum set playing (independence/coordination of the limbs, relaxation and balance, time and groove, fills and solos, introduction of musical styles, etc.) For advanced students I get into more conceptual and creative aspects of playing the drums, but I also introduce the Spivack/Wilson technique which I learned during my studies with Murray Spivack and Richard Wilson in the 1980s [check out the 4-part series featured in Modern Drummer magazine in 2011-2012]. This technique focuses on mechanics and involves such concepts as the wrist turn, rebound, upstroke, downstroke, fulcrum, guide, balancing point, and floor of the stroke.