Robert A
Instruments: Piano, Drums, Orchestral Percussion, Conga, Latin Percussion
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock, Salsa

I have been teaching privately since 2006. I specialize in jazz drum set, but I can teach all sorts of styles of music as well. In addition to drum set, I teach rudimental, marching and classical snare drum, classical percussion (mallets, timpani), afro-cuban percussion (congas, bongos, timbales), sight reading, music theory, and beginning piano. I also have experience teaching high school drumlines, as well as jazz and rock bands for middle school and high school students.

My teaching method is different depending on the abilities of each student. For beginning students, I use the Haskell W. Harr Drum Method Books 1 & 2, Stick Control by George Lawrence Stone, and The All-American Drummer 150 Rudimental Swing solos by Charley Wilcoxin. Once I feel like a student is strong enough on the snare drum, I will then work with them on developing limb independence on the drum set. All of the snare drum method books that I use with my students will eventually be adapted for drum set. Additionally, some other books that I use with my drum set students are Syncopation by Ted Reed, The Art of Bop by John Riley, The Essence of Afro-Cuban Percussion, and The Essence of Brazillian Percussion by Ed Uribe. For more advanced students, I work on trancriptions of their favorite drummers, chart reading by playing with recordings or live musicians, improvisation over musical forms, and developing indivdual exercises for each student.