You’re excited to get started, but you need to feel comfy you’re going in the right direction.
Maybe you didn’t have the time or haven’t felt confident enough to start learning up until now. For everyone, it’s normal to feel like it’s a big leap to start playing.
It’s easy to feel like you’re too old, you’re not sure if you have any talent, or you just don’t know where to begin.
I’ve been teaching adult students for nearly 15 years, so I’m very familiar with how it feels to sit down at the drums for the first time, and I know it can be a little nerve-racking!
But all my years of teaching have shown me something really important:
It’s not talent, or being the right age, or having some natural gift that produces a confident and capable drummer.
It’s the enthusiasm that comes with knowing you’re heading in the right direction.
“I progressed much faster than I was expecting!”
Most of the things that trip up beginner drummers aren’t mysterious. In fact, they’re really predictable, when you know what you’re looking for.
Imagine you’re learning a drum beat for the first time. You practice it round and round and start to get comfortable with the co-ordination.
And you think you’re playing it correctly, but it still sounds kind of, …….weird.
It’s not wrong exactly, but it just doesn’t sound as cool as you wanted, or like it does on the music you listen to.
This is a really common frustration for new players, and it can be really demotivating.
What’s hiding behind this issue is a number of subtle errors and things that just aren’t going quite right.
They’re the same small mistakes – over and over again.
Holding the sticks a little too tight.
Lifting feet high off the pedals.
Killing the drum sound with the wrong technique.
I see it every year with new students.
Different personalities. Different backgrounds. Same collection of sticking points.
And that’s actually really good news.
“Thank you for being amazing!”
Even though I work as a 1-1 drum teacher, not everyone wants to spend thousands of dollars over years getting direct support, and that’s totally okay.
There’s lots of great ways to learn the drums, and you’ve got to do it in a style and at a pace that feels comfy for you.
But wouldn’t it be great to know that you’re safe, knowing you’re not going to run into any of the most common pitfalls that trip beginner drummers up, sometimes for years?
In fact, when students come to me, a lot of our work is around rescuing their playing from bad habits that developed when they started without any guidance!
I’m always amazed at how much relief it gives them to know they’re finally on the right track.
Let me give you an example.
One example of a beginner issue is something called flamming.
A beginner student might learn a beat from Youtube or from an online course, which is awesome.
But something really important (that’s often not made clear) is that when you first start playing, your hands and feet aren’t quite synced up yet.
You might be trying to hit two drums at the same time, but not quite get it. Most beginners don’t notice when they’re not aware it can be a problem.
Then when you try to put your drum beat to a song, all of a sudden, it sounds really horrible, because some of the drums are slightly out of time with each other.
This one error can be really catastrophic, because it makes music sound bad, no matter what beat you are playing. And if you don’t know what to fix, it’s a massive roadblock.
I’ve had students who have come to me after years of playing who still have this issue.
Fortunately, the fix is straightforward, once you know what you’re listening for.
We have to make sure that the two drums we play sound like one event, No fuzziness or spicy sounds.
We can imagine that the two drum or cymbals we are playing are actually just one drum or cymbal, and we’re going to play them so completely in time together that they just sound like one thing.
When we get it right, it almost sounds more boring. It’s like each drum covers the other one up and then we get one sound.
But then, when we take this single sound to music, assuming we’re playing the right drums in time, it fits perfectly.
And when it fits perfectly, it starts to groove. We start to really feel like we’re a part of the music.
Like we’re the drummer on the track.
Now, you’re really playing. And as my students say, you “feel like a real drummer”,
The job of a good teacher is simply to make that road smoother… to help you feel supported, encouraged, and confident as you move forward.
And that’s exactly why I put this guide together — to give you some direction that feels steadying, reassuring, and builds your confidence from the start.
“James’s teaching is very approachable!”
This isn’t a massive course.
It’s not hours of complicated theory.
It’s not about cramming your head with information.
It’s more like a survival guide.
A way to help you navigate the jungles of drumming without getting lost.
Because once you understand what’s likely to trip you up, those obstacles stop feeling scary.
They just become part of the journey.
And the journey becomes a whole lot more awesome.
(where groove lives or dies)
(where you start sounding "pro" without learning anything new)
(where drumming stops feeling exhausting)
(where progress actually happens)
If you’re already playing in bands or have been studying with a teacher for years, then this is probably not ideally suited for you.
This is written for the drummer who wants to go from:
“I’m learning” to “I sound good playing a beat”
This guide won’t turn you into a drumming master overnight.
But it will save you endless time, frustration and wasted practice sessions.
It’s also exceptional value, given that I would normally charge 50 dollars an hour to teach this material in person.
Given that it normally takes me around a year to walk a student through this information, that represents around 2500 dollars worth of key beginner skills!
However, given how impactful this will be for new drummers, I wanted to offer this information online for less than the price of a single music lesson.
Imagine this is you in a week….
Try it out. See if it helps your playing. If you don’t feel it was worth it, email me within 30 days and I’ll refund you, no questions asked.
Absolutely not. The majority of the concepts are useful to be working on from the start, and when you decide to get a pair of sticks and finally a drum set (electronic or acoustic), all the chapters will become relevant.
No, it’s a toolkit. You can read one section, apply one fix, and get a noticeable improvement without committing to reading the whole document.
It is not an A-Z drum course to learn beats and songs with, but rather a toolkit to prevent you from making beginner mistakes that waste your time.
Not at all. This information is incredibly useful right from the start, so it is the perfect workbook to complement your learning.
A downloadable PDF (which includes all the learning information and supporting infographics). A link for the PDF will be emailed to you so you can download it.
While you can sign up for the PDF on your phone, afterwards I would strongly recommend downloading the PDF from your email to a laptop or device which has a larger screen so you can see the infographics.
It’s about 60 pages long, but you can begin to put changes into action with just a few pages of reading.
Yes. In fact, adults often improve faster because they’re better at focusing on one thing at a time (and they are often more committed to learning!)
Because the difference between “beginner” and “solid” is rarely talent. It’s usually just fixing the handful of mistakes nobody told you about.