One of the ways that I earn an income as a musician is to teach drums, often one-on-one. However, until now, I have never taught online. Having now switched to this new platform, which involves communicating and teaching via a laptop, I have discovered an entirely new set of challenges. Within the current climate, I know that many of my fellow musicians have also switched to this new format, so I want to dedicate this post to help them adapt to these new challenges, with a view to illuminating how they can still be a fantastic teacher.
Enter Dave Goodman. When I think of Dave, I imagine his radiant smile, his sense of calm, and kind voice. I could take up numerous paragraphs with an erudite introduction describing all of his accomplishments and achievements; crediting him for his considerable years of experience as a composer, educator, bandleader, and drummer. Truly, I have a world of respect for the guy. Yet all I can say is that he’s an incredible drummer and inspiring musician.
Having enjoyed just a few lessons with Dave myself, I have seen how dedicated and organised he is with his students. Over the years, he has assisted me with technique, life advice, and helped me to prepare for performances and competitions. I am sure I would benefit and improve even more if I committed to weekly lessons. I have observed his methodical approach to teaching, and witnessed his patience and encouragement, which are essential qualities for a teacher to possess. He has a wealth of knowledge, so thought he to be the perfect person to ask for advice and reflections upon teaching.
Reaching-out to him recently, he provided me with some great tips.
DAVE’S TIPS
ON BEING PREPARED
“I’m going to talk mostly about some fundamentals of good teaching here because I figure that it’s important to remember that we’re still ultimately teaching music whether on or offline, so these principles hold true regardless of the delivery platform. If you’re a musician who suddenly finds yourself teaching a lot more to help make ends meet during these wildly uncertain times, remember that teaching is something you get better at with a wide and long range of experience. Your job, paradoxically enough, is ultimately to make yourself redundant in the student’s life by equipping them with enough learning strategies, practice tips and feedback loops that they can continue to teach themselves without your assistance. The younger the student, the longer this process takes. With this in mind, be specific each week with giving them very clear instruction about what they are to have done prior to the next lesson, and be very clear about what comes next so they have that to look forward to. This means having a good clear overview of what a good course through music learning ideally looks like to you. If you don’t have such a structure in mind, the lessons aren’t really going to go anywhere, and you’re likely to either lose students, or, after some time, turn out some really mediocre ones. That’s not what they’re paying you for. If they end up sounding mediocre, that’s on you. Everyone is mentally approachable from 360°. If your current approach isn’t making them practice, then continue trying a new approach until you find one that works. Because your teaching for the foreseeable future is likely to be done remotely online, write as many PDFs of your own original work in each area as you can, and be prepared to share those files with your students throughout the lesson. This is an especially useful thing to do if you’ve suddenly found yourself out of performance work. Invest your newfound free time wisely in fruitful tasks such as this. Ask your students to print those and use a music stand rather than the screen.”
TRICKS OF THE TRADE (for drummers)
“Having recorded many of the lessons I’ve given (and taken) over Skype for the last five years, here are some tips based on personal observation. The simplest setup you can have is to use a practice pad, and, if possible, a bass drum pedal and a hi hat pedal attached to practice pads so that the feet can also be included. Because of the possibility of overloading and distorting the mic on your web device, use some muffling pads on your drums and cymbals. I personally use, endorse and recommend the ProLogix range of pads for this as they’ve suited me and my students very well for quite some time now. Seriously though, one single practice pad will give you a lot of mileage. If not, consider why not, and perhaps use this as a basis to start improving your own playing through greater rhythmically and dynamically enriched control. If you are not yourself in the habit of practicing, you won’t know what to expect of your student from week to week. Practicing reveals things about yourself and about the music that only come through engaging in the process itself. Expect that it’ll take probably at least three months of daily attention to notice any appreciable changes and improvements in overall skill. Try to smile genuinely as much as you can, and don’t regress into “connection troubleshooting mode” too much. If it’s a little pixelated, don’t draw attention to that, but have your student do many repetitions and perhaps you’ll catch two or three of those that you can comment on without even mentioning the quality of the connection.”
ON PRESENTING ENGAGING LESSONS
“If your students can’t do something as simple as to read, or to play a good, clean double stroke roll, for example: teach them! That’s your job! Too many times I’ve had conversations with people who write students off because they “can’t do” a certain thing without realising that the reason why they can’t do that thing is simply because they haven’t learned it, and, again, it’s your job to be equipped to offer them insight into how to learn that thing with reasonable expectations about precisely how long it’s realistically going to take them to learn that thing. This seems really simple, but I’m often surprised by how many students I’ve seen written off by their teachers because “they’re just not any good at that thing” - help them to get better at it before writing them off! If you’re positive and enthusiastic about your own learning, this will be transferred automatically to your student whether you’re online or in-person. The technology only enhances what is already good teaching, and amplifies weaknesses in poor teaching. Students with poor attention aren’t being challenged adequately, or, you need to try a multitude of different explanations by listening to the way they talk about things and adapting your narrative to fit their understanding. Have a clear beginning to your lesson as an icebreaker of sorts - “how was your week” (but don’t spend too long here); a review of what’s been practiced (if they’re not expecting you to review the quality of their work, they’re not going to prepare anything for you); presentation of new material (if they’re ready to move on, otherwise present ideas for improving upon last week’s work); and an ending (ask them to teach back to you briefly what you expect of them).”
THE AURAL TRADITION
“Most importantly, please remember that music is quality organised in sound. With this in mind, make sure you’re presenting your student/s with links to as many of the great recordings in whatever genre as you possibly can, and influence them to start listening, and to start finding what their own tastes are. With relatively cheap access to all the streaming services available nowadays, this is a no-brainer. Don’t simply let them be locked into everything they’ve been told to like by mass media marketing, algorithms, and their friends. Try to also influence them to develop the ability to think independently by introducing them to music of quality that is never promoted via the corporate and viral channels. Broaden their palette and give them the opportunity to “like” more stuff than what they’re being persuaded to like by others. All the mechanical, technical and theoretical work - that absolutely must be done - will all be for nothing if there’s no sound in mind that they’re inspired by to see the reason for developing everything that’s mechanical. And, without those sounds in mind, everything that’s learned from a book, or in some conceptual vacuum will sound mechanical and uninspired at best.”
I highly recommend checking out Dave’s thesis. Visit the website here:
For me, personally, the best teachers I have ever had cared about my outcome, meanwhile showed they were invested in my growth and learning. The best drum teacher I had was in high school. I rocked up to my weekly lesson with Simon and was met with enthusiasm and positivity, therefore instantly became excited. This made me want to learn AND practice. I also try to do the same for my students because I believe that if you can get excited about your student’s progress, it makes a difference to the way you approach lessons. Of course, you can still do this with online tuition.
Here are a few of my tips for getting a good home set-up happening;
- Be prepared. Have all the emails and numbers ready to go so when it comes time for the lesson you can just punch in the details to Skype/Zoom and be punctual.
- Have a lesson plan and clear goals for the lesson, as well as a post lesson follow-up.
- Make sure the camera is at a good angle where the student can see both you and the instrument. This also goes for the student; make sure their device is in a suitable position also.
- Make sure the lighting is good, the image is clear, and they can see what you’re doing. Windows usually aren’t a good idea. If you’re teaching in a personal space, such as your room, maybe direct the camera away and make the space clean so it looks professional.
- Use decent headphones.
- Try to eliminate any background noise and distractions such as your dog or the TV, so you don’t lose focus on the lesson.
- Make sure you have a good internet connection. Might not always be the case but this will limit stuffing around.
- Speak clearly and not too fast. Sometimes there is a lag with the connection, so allow for the student to respond so you don’t talk over each other. It can get messy.
- Have a big bottle of water! During 5 hours of non-stop talking you are going to need a drink and perhaps a snack.
- If you have lessons back-to-back, try to wind up all the lessons with a minute or 2 to go. This will allow you to have a drink, toilet break, stretch, then get ready for your next student.
- If you’ve been thrown into online teaching, you don’t need fancy gadgets and microphones; just use what you have, as any laptop will do.
- Online teaching can be a little draining. If you are scheduling your own lessons, try to schedule 4 in a block, then take a break. You may even organise all your lessons in a morning or afternoon slot, so it’s a dedicated period to working.
Good luck!
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