No, I don’t think the most important thing to start drums with is proper technique – I believe the most important thing to begin with is fun! Without excitement, passion and fun, studying and learning is not enjoyable and without joy there is no real growth and no “staying power”. If a young student has to be enticed to practice by applying pressure or punitive measures (“If you don’t practice, you can’t play *video games* (insert here whatever it is the student really likes)”) this pressure will make the student resent music and put it in the same category as chores he/she does not like to do.

As soon as the student is old enough to have his/her own mind, he/she will say “no” to music lessons and drop them and music altogether. How many parents of my students tell me this kind of story: “I used to play piano, but dropped it when I was 12. I wish I would have kept going.”

Offering money for practicing (using “the carrot” instead of “the stick” approach) will teach the young student that making money is the most important thing, not the passion for music they had at first. So to go back to the “joy principle” – if I, as a private drum teacher, can figure out where the passion of my drum student lies, I can access what will make the student practice and make music their “own”.

What To Start With?

Most of the time, it is not hard to figure out. Especially drum students like the drums not as a solo instrument, but as an accompanying instrument. They have heard a song, where they thought the drums “sounded cool” or saw someone playing drums in a video in a band, and it “looked like fun”. These drummers did not play by themselves, they played with other musicians and performed songs.

90% of the time, learning songs is the key to learning the drums. Choosing the right songs to start with is important, as they should be easy and not too fast. A pretty perfect song in that regard is, for example, “7 Nation Army”.

Not everyone likes rock, though. So, for instance with Claudia, a young female drum students, we found some songs by Taylor Swift and Bridgit Mendler that worked better for her  (this is, of course, a specific example – I teach many female drum students who like to rock!).

So – No Snare Drum Exercises?

In my private drum lessons, I use mostly songs, which teach the student about timing, dynamics, drum beats and drum fills and groove. I also make sure that we do touch on the snare drum rudiments in every lesson, but not too much, as I have yet to experience a drum student more excited to learn a Paradiddle (one of the first snare drum rudiments) then to learn the beat to “Back In Black”