Drum Lessons Tulsa | Advice for Beginners
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
And this edition of the Curtis music Academy podcast, we’re going to be discussing how, how I have advice for beginning students, my advice for beginning students as they are beginning and starting their, taking their first step into drum lessons Tulsa, how they can better themselves, how they can stay inspired, how they can have fun and get the results that they want. You know? And so without further ado, we’re going to be talking about learning at the pace of no mistakes. Secondly, how to practice a ton. And thirdly, how to have fun. I know that rhymed, but I didn’t intend for it to rhyme. And so, without further ado, we are talking about how much advice I have for my beginning students in drum lessons Tulsa.
And so my first point, I really, my first point I want to make is that I’ve been a music instructor for five years, going on six years now and have learned so much about students, about how, how people learn differently, the different learning styles that are out there, how to teach different age groups and how to effectively communicate and transfer skill in drum lessons Tulsa. And there’s a, there’s a ton that I can teach you, but today is just going to be my, my best advice for my beginning students. Now another point is that I’ve been a musician for 11 years, going on 12 years this coming March, which will be my birthday. And I believe, actually I’ve hit a leaven years, but I might already have hit 12 years because I started when I was 12 and from 12 to 13, 13 to 14, 15, 16, 17, 1819 2122 2324.
I, as of this coming March, I will have been playing for 12 years. And so it’s an amazing feat feature. It’s an amazing accomplishment in my, my opinion. And it’s been awesome and I’ve learned so much. It’s, it’s been, I’ve performed a lot of different contexts with a lot of different people. And so anywhere from, you know, American idol auditions and winning two rounds and, and the third round getting cut. I’ve learned about achievements, I’ve learned about how to deal with disappointments. I’ve learned how to still keep moving forward in life, how to keep moving forward and goals, having to have standards for yourself, how to keep winning in this musical challenge and learning games. So we are going to be discussing a few of those things. My first tip for you beginning students is going to need to be, you always want to learn at the pace of no mistakes.
And you may ask Steven, what does that even mean? Learn at the pace of no mistakes. Are you trying to be extra philosophical with us? And I would say thanks for asking, but no, I’m not trying to be extra philosophical. I’m trying to be extra helpful. In my experience, learning at the pace of no mistakes is not something that I just learned or, or just jumped into. It was actually something I learned based on experience in drum lessons Tulsa. I ended up trying to learn things so fast to where I couldn’t even play them well. And as a young boy, I did learn fast. I learned very fast to the point where people were like, dude, you’re really good. You should play on the worship team at church. You should try out for American idol on TV. You should sing on the news, you should play at this bar, you should play at this coffee shop.
Can you play at this coffee shop? I’ll pay you. Can you play at this bar? I’ll pay you. It’s important to be skilled, but what’s more important is to establish skill faster. You actually need to go slower and this is where the patients is required. It’s required to get really good at it. You want to slow down so that you are intentional and that you’re paying attention to what fingers you need to be using as you’re playing the drums in drum lessons Tulsa. One of the greatest tools to use to learn at the pace of no mistakes would be a metronome for drum lessons Tulsa. And I would highly recommend this to anyone who has enough patience to start at 40 beats per minute.
If you can’t do it at 40, drop it down five notches or drop it up five notches if you can. You always want to navigate speed in five notches up or down, slow or fast. And so it’s important to learn at the pace of no mistakes. Because if you don’t, you will create the wrong muscle memory and you will never become as skilled as you want to become. It’s important to hardwire the correct way because it’s very unknown. It’s very hard to unwire later in life. So it doesn’t get any more easier from this point on other than so take the right steps, take the right methods. And the first method is learn at the pace of no mistakes using a metronome.
So my second point is something that we always encourage when it comes to, students is high levels of practice. Early on for you beginning students out there, I want to encourage you to practice for at least 30 to 45 minutes a day. If you can’t hit 30 minutes a day, the minimum you want to hit is 20 minutes a day. No more than that, no less than that. But if you can minimum 20 minutes a day, if you can do 30 do 20 you can do 20 do what she can. But let 20 be your standard. I would even say let 30 minutes be your standard, but we don’t always have 30 minutes, you know, in today’s world. So it’s important that you create and carve out time in your calendar, in your day, in the morning to plus practice for 20 minutes straight in drum lessons Tulsa.
You’ll first want to warm up and then you’ll want to jump into whatever it is that you want to practice. Whether that’s a scale, whether that’s a song, whether that’s just a few chords, whatever it is, you want to do that for 15 minutes. So you’ll warm up and then you will practice your main topic for 15 minutes. What is a warmup? But warm up will be warm up. Number one, which is what we teach. We teach the Caterpillar, which is you start with your index finger on the first fret, first string, and then your second finger, your middle finger on the second fret, first string, and then third fret, first string with a third finger. Then your pinky finger was the fourth fret for a string with your banking.
And so that’s just one workout you can do and you want to grab as you finish with the pinky. So you’ll go one, two, three, four. After that pinky, you want to slide down one fret at a time and repeat these four fingers. And then after you’ve completed that fourth finger, drop it another Fred and then another fret. And then go up another fret and then up another fret until your pinky hits the 12th fret. That’s when you’ll reverse it and go down the other direction. That is the exercise we call. Exercise number four or warmup number one, exercise number one, or, or warm up number one. Either way that is going to get your fingers moving and it’s going to create some, some good, dexterity as well as accuracy with your fingers. It’ll help you to accurately and get more coordinated and help with finger coordination as you navigate different shapes, different scales and such.
And then lastly, I just want to say have fun in drum lessons Tulsa. My advice for you beginning students is just to have fun, fall in love with the guitar and how do you have fun? It’s, it’s knowing how to get the results that you want. That’s when things become really fun. So when you know exactly how to get the results that you want, whenever you want them, that’s, that’s where it becomes a game in drum lessons Tulsa. You need to know the rules. What are the rules of music? One of the rules of guitar, you know, you’ve got to have fingers, so you know, and you’ve got to be able to stretch and do some finger yoga to do it for drum lessons Tulsa. And so when you can do that, you know the rules, then you can play. And once you played a little bit, you have practice. Once you practice, you get competent. Once you’re competent, you have confidence.