Lesson # 5

Another 2 weeks already ? Cor blimey . . . that means this was the last of my paid-up-front lessons so time to decide if I stick with them, or go away and consolidate on my own for now. I gave this some serious thought over the last couple of days and decided to keep going. It has been hard to find the time to practice to get the most out of the lessons, but to be fair that necessity has been a good thing in keeping me moving forward on the practice front. And the money : well, money's for spending, and overdrafts are for, err, overdrafting. So onward and upward.

Today we warmed up with some easy singles and doubles, and we talked about how my grip really has come on since last time (the pad practice is paying off ;-) ) and the benefit of doing these things correctly from the outset. Then it was time to play through the 'homework' from last time - namely the 3 bars of 8th note groove, 1 bar fill, 3 bars 16th note groove on ride, 1 bar fill, repeat to fade. Oh and wrong-handed too.

Today's new item was the triplet. My teacher seemed a little relieved that I was at least aware of what this was "...3 notes played in the space of 2 normal notes..." and we set about a simple exercise to get the relative speeds of 8th notes, triplets and 16ths in to my head and limbs. Once I'd grasped this we applied it to a basic groove - with the right hand playing a bar of straight 8th note hi-hat (1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &), then a bar of triplets (1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a) then a bar of 16ths over an otherwise static very basic groove. Learning to feel the relative pace of each was key. All through this he was noting good and bad posture, stroke technique and all the other good things that keep me on the straight and narrow. This and similar exercises will form much of my next period of home practice.

From that we jumped back to some of my 8th and 16th note grooves from earlier lessons to make sure I'd not forgotten the basics and we then closed with a quick 'game' of copy the beat which rounded things off in a relaxed way.