Drum Lessons Online

Exclusive Music Industry Interviews

Gain invaluable insight into the professional music industry that can help your career as a drummer.

We have exclusive interviews with Recording Industry Executives, Producers, Artists, Musicians, and Engineers that you will have access to as a “Flam Slam” member.

Here are some clips from an interview with Danny Grady.

Danny Grady is an accomplished musician of 25 years. He is a guitarist, songwriter, and producer. After forming the band “Injected” in the mid-90’s, they released their major label debut, Burn It Black, on Feb. 26, 2002 on Island Records. The album was produced by another Atlanta native, former Marvelous 3 frontman and Rolling Stone noted producer Butch Walker (Avril Lavigne, Sevendust, SR-71, Bowling for Soup, Rock Star Supernova). Injected made a video for its first single, “Faithless,” and the song became a top 20 single on modern and active rock charts, reaching as high as #3 on MTVs rock countdown. Album cuts such as “I-IV-V” and “Burn It Black” were also included on soundtracks for films such as “The Fast and the Furious” and “The Scorpion King”, among others.

Danny’s most noted accomplishment as of late, was scoring a cut on the 2008 American Idol Winner, David Cook, debut album. The song is called “Barbisol”.

Danny is on his way to great things. Not only is he a great songwriter and guitarist, he is a great producer. Being a producer, and working with a lot of different drummers, has given him an inside look at information that can help drummers preparing to go into the studio, prepare for a live gig, or audition.

This information in this video alone is worth subscribing to the Groove Is King Training System. It could contain the one thing that you needed to know to get that gig or get called back. Be sure to Sign Up to see the FULL video.

Enter your name and email address above and you will be sent the link to download your Free Drum Lessons.

There are drum lessons for both the beginning drummer and the intermediate drummer.  You will have access to a hi-res version of the drum lessons, a low-res version of the drum lessons, and also an iPod formatted version.

Watch sample clips from various Hi-Definition Drum Training Lessons included with your membership:

Lessons in just the first 3 months alone will cover such topics as:

• Click exercises and development using 40 - 50 bpm groove exercises
• Triplet techniques and explaining how to segment their use around the kit in fills and grooves
• Proper Practice techniques and schedules. Approaching it from a mental and physical point of view
• Moeller Method and it’s purpose and uses around the kit.
• “The simplest of things left undone can undo you” – We will discuss all types of protocols in a variety of situations from auditions, recording sessions, soundchecks, rehearsals, etc…
• Concepts on how to hear and develop your inner creativity to develop parts through using drum hooks
• Modules based around teaching how to mix yourself as a drummer
• Understanding rebound, it’s use and how to use it on the kit
• and much, much more…

Drum Notation PDF’s come with your Video Training Modules.

These pdf’s include practice tips and suggestions of how to properly develop the concepts and techniques demonstrated in the videos.  Also, for those more advanced, there are multiple variations of the demonstrated exercises that are more challenging.

Below is a sample page from one of training pdf’s:

This is a module based professional drum training system.  After completion of the modules, you will have the knowledge and understanding of the concepts and techniques you need to be a successful drummer.

Personalized Video Evaluation

The Personalized Video Evaluation is used to maintain a student teacher relationship in an online format.

Once a month, you can submit a 2-3 minute video where you will perform the concepts or exercises taught in that month’s video lessons. Upon submission, your performance will be reviewed and a written evaluation of your progress will be sent back to you.

The benefit of the Personalized Video Evaluation is that it allows you to capture your best performance in a non-intimidating environment for evaluation.

Your video submissions will only be seen by Groove Is King staff.

Here is a sample of what to expect from a Personal Video Critique:

Sample Personalized Video Written Evaluation:

Well, first let me say John you’re doing great. I liked the passion you put into trying to make even the technical practice stuff feel good.

Assessment:

You are doing a good job with the stick heights and it seems like your understanding why you need dynamics. However, be sure to pay close attention to the way everything sounds in relation to each other. It sounded like the faster your tempo got, the more your focus shifted from groove and feel, to how fast can I play this to impress. Impressing me or anyone else is not important. Does it sound the way you know it should? Until you have the “feel” down at the slower tempos, don’t move up to the faster ones. There is no rush. The speed will come with time. But the speed will not be useable, and will not sound right, if you acquired that speed with bad technique.

Some things to help you improve:

Take the Band-n-a-Pods, and practice the 8th note and 16th note variations at several different dynamic levels from real soft, to real hard for extended periods of time on your practice pad. Do this with individual hands so you can isolate any technical breakdown between the two hands. After doing this take this technique to the drum kit and start on the snare drum, then gradually move it between different voices of the drums. (ie. Tom-Snare, HiHat-Snare, Floor Tom-Snare, Tom-Floor Tom, etc…) This will help develop the supporting muscles that will help you navigate around the kit more efficiently.

Alright, go get your groove on, and I’ll see you next time.

Ashley

Listen to Sample Band-n-a-Pods

The Sticking of the Week is a free tool I’ve created to give you a chance to expand your creativity on the drum kit or practice pad. This particular sticking starts with a para-diddle and moves the accent over to the “e”, and then back to the one to finish it out.

Now, the goal of this sticking and all future SOTW is not to give you a “Lick” to use, but it is designed to jump start your creativity. I know from personal experience that many times students of mine have found things on the Internet and brought them in for me to show them how to apply them. That seems to be the biggest communication gap for many web related help materials. So, I am going to try and fill that gap by explaining how to go about creating and exploring the different voices of your drum kit. You will be surprised at your ability to create parts you never thought of before after applying this concept.

First, start with this on the snare drum to get the sticking under your hands and begin to hear the accents. Start slow using some of the “largo click tracks” in the Free Tools section of the site. Use a relaxed and light approach to develop the muscle memory of the how the accented and unaccented notes feel flowing between each other.

This is where it gets fun. Try keeping one hand, right or left on the snare playing all of it’s corresponding notes, accented and unaccented. Move only the accented notes of the other hand to another part of your drum kit, (i.e. Tom, hi-Hat, ride, rim, bell, etc…). Spend several minutes doing this and then switch and let the other had do that.

Now, you can reverse this exercise by playing all the unaccented notes on other parts of your kit, and playing only the accented notes on the snare. This part of the exercise alone, could keep you busy for a while.

Think about what I just gave you to do. This was just 10% of how we could open this up. We didn’t even discuss creating a “Linear” groove pattern with it. Just one sticking mastered, or at least internalized, can sound like 20 different ones. How, because of each purposed placement and touch you apply while performing makes it take on a completely unique sound.

Hopefully this reading has triggered your creative side, and now you can go start practicing.

If you enjoyed this, and would like to know how to even create more variations with this and all future stickings, then go sign up for the Groove is King Professional Drum Training system and get ready to completely change the way you practice and play drums.

Sticking of the Week 1 Audio Clips

Audio Example - Slow

Audio Example - Medium

Audio Example - Fast