Up front: it’s hack teaching, don’t do it. If you already do it, no judgment, just… stop doing it.
I’m surprised I’ve let this topic slide this long, the approach is very common, and it really bugs me.
Here’s why. It’s:
Fundamentally wrong
This instrument— the drumset— is played ad lib. You improvise your “parts.” I don’t even call it improvising, it’s just playing. Even when you’re reading, you’re mostly improvising. Professional drum charts, you’ve noticed, are sketches. We have a lot of freedom to interpret the music we play, and people need to be taught from that perspective.
If you’re not improvising your parts, it’s because you rehearsed something a lot and decided you wanted to play something a certain way. Or you had a producer, songwriter, or leader who want something very particular. Very rarely you might have the thing written out note for note. The basic job, though, is to play.
The wrong right and wrong
That kind of teaching suggests there’s a right and wrong thing to play, and the right thing is what some other guy played on a record, once, and the wrong thing is whatever you wanted to play instead of that.
You can’t be thinking right notes / wrong notes, you think about playing time, and playing the arrangement, and using your ears and playing what seems right, and taking the music where you want it to go.
In normal playing wrong means a time/timing error, or a gross lapse in taste, or missing a critical arranged event. We could go further with that, but you get the point: it’s not about omg, I hit the middle tom on that fill when I was supposed to hit the high tom. I played different ghost notes from the record.
Hackery
I first became aware of it as hack teaching with a prolific guitar teacher in my home town of Eugene, Oregon. A guy put out ads that he would “teach you any song”, and that’s what he did. Kids would come away from lessons knowing “to play Walk This Way you put your fingers here then here then here“, and nothing about playing the guitar. Even in high school it seemed fishy— I knew a lot of older players, professionals and college students, and none of them worked that way.
The guy was feeding them the barest minimal morsel of isolated information so they don’t learn how to do anything themselves, and are forced to come back to you to learn another song. They think that’s the way it’s supposed to go, and never think to ask teach me what you do, how come you can figure out “any song” and I can’t?
The right way to do it
OK, a way to do it.
OK, the way I do, how I handle the topic of “learning songs”, when someone brings it up: teach form, teach drumming functions.
Form = the structure of the song. A pop song might go:
intro – Verse – Chorus – V – C – bridge – V – C – C – coda
With jazz, we’d be learning about the different standard forms, and how to identify them, and how they work in that setting.
Drumming functions = what you play, for what musical purpose
Those include playing time, making stops, making figures, filling, and soloing. And playing percussion sounds for effect, concert percussion style. And generally supporting the form and phrasing of the tune.
So you teach the student what each of those things mean, and listen through a few songs with the student and identify those things, and note how the drummer chose to do them.
So, there you go. Occasionally the subject comes up with parents, or with students, and I explain some form of the above, and why I do not teach that way, why it would be unethical for me to teach that way, and why it’s a very poor value for the lessons money they’re spending.
I have seen teachers say they teach this way for engagement— it’s more “fun” for the students, and they’re trying to “hook” them. Possibly it is fun, the way paint-by-numbers is fun. What’s more fun even than that is being creatively empowered, which I teach at virtually every stage of development. And real learning is fun. Respect your students enough to expect them to find it fun.
I am happy to help you with any of the materials on the site, and with anything else drumming related— contact me for private lessons, online world wide, or in person in Portland, Oregon. All levels of players, and all people, are welcome.
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