It’s been about 5 months since starting P37. I took a considerable amount of time and late nights developing my personal drumkit syllabus, thinking that it would form the bulk of my classes; turns out I was completely wrong.
Having a healthy number of regular drum students now, I find myself spending 80% of my class time teaching students’ song requests, instead of the actual syllabus that I developed. The syllabus is essential as it focuses on drum basics, rudiments, grooves and techniques that can be used in music. However, without proper application, students rarely see the usefulness of these rudimentary drum content.
A lot of admin time is spent transcribing songs, tedious as it is, I find myself enjoying the process of broadening my song databank. I’ve got students from all walks of life, and these are their various song requests: Mandarin tunes, Cantopop, Mandarin Christian music, classic/ psychedelic rock, Hip Hop, Rap, even Minecraft tunes! I think I have about 50 song scores now, and the database of song transcriptions is growing.
Nothing beats revealing to a student a song transcription request; to see their faces light up as they attempt their favorite tunes, note for note, makes the effort of song transcribing worth it.
~Teacher Joel~
~Private Drum Teacher from Pasir Ris, Elias Road, Singapore~
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