Piano with John S.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: I started teaching at the age of 19. My drum teacher gave me a couple of students after I expressed interest in teaching. My performance background has included everything from playing in professional bands at Presidential conventions and country clubs to jobs with bands that involved traveling in tough coal mining towns in West Virginia. I went to New York City in the late 1970's to study at the Drummer's Collective because I wanted to deepen my understanding of jazz and fusion music. I studied for four years with instructors who were professional musicians playing with groups, such as the Pointer Sisters, Dizzy Gillespie, and Manhattan Transfer. My teaching style and versatility comes from these patient, helpful, humble and generous people who themselves were wonderful musicians. Over the past several years (2001-present) I have become a band leader and have learned to play Indian Tabla drums, African Djembe drums, Irish drums, percussion, piano, steel drum, banjo, and ukulele. I like to help people and love all kinds of music . PIANO I have always liked melody and rhythm and what better instrument to learn melody and rhythm from then the Piano? I studied Piano at the Levine School of Music in Washington, DC. I like to teach Blues, American standards, and classic rock. I start with the basics, teaching how to read the treble-clef scales, major and minor appreciated chords. Next I teach a few pop songs, with right hand playing melody using proper fingering and the left hand accompanying by playing simple noted chords. I will then have the student make the left hand play over two octaves and then add some of the notes from the chord into the right hand along with the melody. I teach the note values, such as eighth, sixteenths, halves and whole notes. The purpose and the ultimate goal is to create a comfort level with the mechanics of chords, rhythm, and melody so that the student can make their own arrangement of songs. DRUM SET My Approach to teaching drum set skills is as follows: STAGE ONE: Basic skills organized as follows: Reading Notes, Counting Beats, Holding the Drumsticks properly, Keeping Time. STAGE TWO: Dynamics - Learning to Listen, Copying or Transposing Notes from Recordings. STAGE THREE: Application - An outgrowth of the first two stages-from learning to count and read rhythms the student will develop an awareness of where they are in the song or musical piece. The student will develop an anticipation of what is coming and when the music or song will end or change. At this stage the student will develop the capacity to feel the beat and the music and how their drumming fits in to the overall piece. He/she will learn what feels right and is natural to play. DJEMBE, TABLAS, BANJO, UKULELE, STEEL DRUM African Djembe - I learned African drumming through 4 years of lessons with West African performers/instructors and have conducted Djembe drum therapy programs for over 20 years. I teach the basic three tones (slap, open sound, and base sound), basic African rhythms, and soloing within each rhythm. Indian Tablas - I had 4 years of lessons from an instructor who was a student of Zakir Hussain, the current expert on tablas. Also performed live at Indian restaurants and weddings. I teach tones (bols), northern Indian classical patterns, solos within those patterns. Banjo - Studied clawhammer style banjo with banjo instructors/performing artists in Washington, DC area. I teach tablature reading and through example. Ukulele - Studied jazz, blues, Hawaiian style in Washington DC area. I teach simple chords and songs, strumming, notes, scales, and chord scales, blues in different keys. Steel Drum - Received private instruction but am mostly self-taught. I teach notes, scales, chords, and Caribbean, jazz, and blues songs.