Yes I know, I talk about online lessons a lot. But the truth is, teaching online has been my biggest musical challenge this year, so I’m always thinking about how its effecting my students and how to make it better and easier for them.
Recently one of my friends has started teaching drums, and he reached out to me to talk about some tips and tricks for teaching drumset online to kids who do not have a drumset at home. This is definitely a challenge. The real problem with teaching online is that we cannot always work on the things that the kids want to do. They want to hit drums and they want to drum with you, but that is pretty much impossible to do. So here is what I think the real goal of online lessons should be.
Make the not fun things fun! There is so much more to drumming then just hitting drums. Knowing rudiments, focussing on fundamentals, understanding theory, music reading and musical context. These are all crucial parts of becoming a musician and enjoying drums, however they are usually not that exciting. And on top of that they are even less exciting over zoom. Therefore we need to take advantage of what we do have. One advantage of teaching online is that the kids have everything in their house at their disposal. Buckets, markers, paper, dice, LEGO. I love finding ways to create music, to explore rhythms and to write songs using abstract things in their houses. Create challenges, invent games, find ways to make the “boring” parts of music engaging.
Let’s be honest. Filling out worksheets and going through theory books is boring. It’s even more boring when you cannot alternate between hitting drums and learning theory. Let’s focus on being creative with our learning and keeping out kids engaged. The real goal of online lessons is to make sure they don’t lose interest before we can come back in person.
-Hilary