Specialized
ADULT DRUM LESSONS
Ignite your passion for music and learn how to drum with us in a one-on-one drum lesson specially for adults, using a proven syllabus since 2010.
Being one of the top drum schools in Singapore, we have over 100 positive reviews of our lessons, trusted by hundreds of students each year to deliver the best drum education in Singapore.
Past Decade
100%
Success Rate
More Than
100
Positive Reviews
Located in
2
Locations
trusted by hundreds of working professionals to provide you with the best drum lessons in Singapore
100% success rate with our students over the past decade.
Gaining our experience since 2010, most adult learners with us are beginners, ranging from young adults to retired seniors, trained professionals like lawyers, doctors, or entrepreneurs. The secret to our success is our ability to use different lesson plans to cater to your goals and learning speed. We maintain a 100% success rate for our adult students to play on the drumset during our many years in operation.
Our goal is for you to be independent.
Our lessons are structured to develop your basic knowledge and to speak the language of drums in the shortest time possible. Equipping you with this knowledge, we want you to be able to process the vast majority of information online effectively and allow you to learn independently at home, rather than swiping around your feed and struggling with random information that pops up.
We believe in building a community.
Immerse Yourself in a growth environment
All of our staff are drummers. We talk, learn and live drums, and we want to infect you with our passion. Immersing yourself in a thriving environment is the only true way that will ensure your success and preserve your motivation.
We are also avid supporters of our local drumming community The Drummer Co, and actively encourage our students to engage in their community events to meet new drummers of all levels.
no more electronic drums, experience playing on actual acoustic drumsets
leave that electronic drums where it should be, at home.
Electronic drums are great for home practice due to the lack of noise and the ease of access. We know it best as we retail over 20 different models of electronic drums across multiple brands, and we highly recommend them as home practice solutions.
That said, every drummer who has played enough would tell you the same thing – experiencing your beats come to live through an acoustic drumset is an experience that cannot be replaced. And that is our commitment to you.
Do You Have Problems Moving From Electronic To Acoustic Drums? Here’s Why
Through our years of teaching, we have helped corrected countless students that started learning on their own with electronic drums. Many of them think that electronic drums are a different instrument from acoustic drums, hence their inability to play acoustic drums right. That is far from the truth, they are in fact the same instrument and the cause of that inability is improper techniques.
Improper learning on electronic drums might require an “adjustment period” to replicate your skillsets to the acoustic drums due to the difference in volume (also known as dynamics) control, and rebound control. Improper striking techniques are also common, as many students get used to hitting the drum’s side (metal rim) instead of the drum head itself while learning through electronic drums. This is because electronic drums trigger a sound as long as the impact is made, even if not at the correct place.
We Commit Our Resources To Allow You To Play In A Carefree Environment
Although high end electronic drums and acoustic drums have a similar price point, the cost of the room required vastly differs. Due to the volume, acoustic drums require a soundproofed environment to avoid causing disturbance to your neighbors. Soundproofed wall are three times the cost of normal walls, and soundproofed doors are eight to ten times the cost of a normal door.
Our walls are four times thicker than the average wall, and our doors are proper STC rated soundproofed doors. All our rooms are also fitted with special ventilation systems to facilitate air flow (soundproofed rooms are air tight).
The perfect dream room for drummers, that is our commitment to you.
Experience the best drumset playing environment
With the Bose Experience
Having proper sound systems elevates your playing experience. The extra clarity from proper sound setups also ensures that you do not have to crank the volume every time you play with the songs and damage your ears.
We are one of the few schools in Singapore that invest in high end sound systems from Bose Professionals, to ensure a proper and comfortable playing experience for all our students.
Experience Live On StageShowcase Your Skills
Annual Recital Opportunities
The Preferred Drum School In Singapore
| Other Music Schools | DrumTannery | |
|---|---|---|
| Syllabus |
✘Challenging to develop strong drums focused program due to too many instruments offered
|
✔Strong and ever-evolving drums learning structure and environment
|
| Consistency In Results |
✘Heavily reliant on instructors personal expertise
|
✔Specialty schools allow us to effectively train our instructors to deliver high standards
|
| Instructor Quality |
✘Engages mostly part-time instructors
|
✔Consists of mostly full-timers with 120 hours of initial training and 30 hours of maintenance training annually in pedagogy and drumming development
|
| Pricing |
✘Disruptive Pricing – Prices increases as you advance
|
✔Flat rate pricing allows you to stay with us your entire journey
|
| Administrative Procedures |
✘Schedule changes creates administrative headache for students
|
✔Dedicated portal for replacement lesson bookings at ease 24/7, with a 4 month validity period
|
| Quality of Learning Environment |
✘Uses electronic drums only, due to soundproofing concerns
|
✔Carefully selected locations and soundproofing to house un-muted acoustic drums for your best experience
|
Course Structure and Breakdown
Find out why we are the best in the industry. Our course has a 100% success rate in teaching adults to learn drums and play with several songs of their liking. It is important to note that this is a rough guideline of our course materials, but your instructor may not follow through in this order. This is because our instructors are trained to assess your strengths and weaknesses and may deploy different strategies to help you overcome them as many of these topics are interrelated. All modules, except for technical ones will be led by songs, for you to have an understanding on its practical applications. You may choose your own songs, and your instructors will assess if they can integrate the lessons into your song choice or if your song is suitable at your current level.
The rate of progress is highly dependent on individuals and how much they practice. The average adult without practice, will be able to learn a song within the first few weeks, and two to three songs with increasing difficulty in the following 6 to 8 months. You are not required to increase the difficulty or complete all our modules. You may communicate to your instructor if you feel comfortable with where you are and wish to take it slow. Most recreational adults stay within our beginner modules throughout their time with us, only 20% of our adult learners wishes to proceed on to intermediate modules.
Beginner
This is where it all begins. Whether you are a recreational player or someone looking to build serious foundations, we understand that each student has their own progress. For recreational players, staying at our Beginner modules will allow you to explore a large number of songs, and develop a strong playing competency, enough to call yourself a drummer among your friends. For those who are looking to advance your skillset, we will recommend you to complete most modules, and spend at least 2 to 4 hours per week to practice for maximum efficiency.
The timeframe in completing the beginner modules can range from months to years. This is dependent on the students personal progress, as well as pace that he wants the instructor to set.
For beginners who are eager to show what you have learned in our drum lessons, fret not. You will be able to achieve a basic competency and play with songs in a matter of weeks!
*Not all modules are compulsory, and there are no fixed timeline, it is purely up to how fast and where you want to bring your drumming to.
Grips
In this module, you will learn about the different types of grips, the muscles they use, and their advantages/disadvantages. We will focus on one particular grip, which strengthens and acclimatizes you to achieve proper wrist strokes before we move on to other muscle groups and techniques in the future.
Theory
Rhythm is all about spacing, and learning the theory is the best way to visualize how different spaces work together to deliver a rhythm and build a strong foundation for your understanding of more advanced topics in the future. It is also an essential tool for your instructor to communicate with you in the classroom.
For beginners, we will start with three ways to subdivide time: Quarter Notes, Eighth Notes, and Sixteenth Notes.
Once you have learned that, we will also guide you in reading proper drum scores so that you may begin searching for more materials to learn on our OSC platform or your favorite YouTube channels.
Over here, you would learn different combination patterns, also known as broken 16th Notes.
Coordination
What most people deem as the most challenging part of drumming (it is not), coordination can be easily mastered if you have the right approach. Most people start learning new beats at a relatively fast pace, which causes many issues in learning the beat. However, the determination of fast or slow, is highly personal. Through our guided approach, your instructor will be able to guide you on your personalized method by highlighting issues in the learning process, to ensure continuity in proper learning when you practice at home.
As you learn your first beats, you will slowly start using the Crash and Ride Cymbals, and you can play a simple song with some basic fill-ins.
Song Learning
You should have gathered the above basics within the first two lessons; your instructor might have already started you with a song to help you better understand the applications involved. We want to learn a basic slow song with a relatively simple beat and fill-ins.
You may also request songs for instructors, and the instructor will determine if it is suitable for you to play at this level, simplify the song to suit your current playing level or reject the song if it is too difficult.
Basic Fill-Ins
Fill-ins transition a song from section to section and give a break from the routine beats. They often signal fellow musicians in a certain musical direction as well. One common fill-in example is a drum roll around the drum set.
Here, you will learn some basic fill-ins based on the song your instructor is working on with you.
Basic Rudiments and Accent Patterns (Practice Pad Required)
Rudiments are the essential fundamentals of drumming. They consist of a combination of different sticking patterns that you can use to explore different sounds. When combined with accents (playing harder on certain notes), you will be able to develop thousands of melodic combinations with just one drum alone. This is often practiced on the practice pad, hence it is compulsory for you to purchase one.
One example of rudiments would be a single-stroke roll, the sticking pattern would be
RLRL (Right, Left, Right, Left)
At the Beginner 1 stage, we will only touch on one or two basic rudiments and one or two basic accent patterns, as you will already be able to play a large number of songs with just these basic fundamentals.
Ear Training
An overlooked and misunderstood aspect of playing is the inability to play your notes in time or space them out evenly. This does not stem from your inability to control your hands properly. It is often caused by your inability to “hear” the spacing between the notes.
Another critical aspect of this module is training to “hear” your beats rather than follow the score. This is the crucial difference between most “self-taught” and “school-taught” drummers. School-taught drummers often have weak hearing abilities as they rely on scores. Self-taught drummers often skip the theory part and rely only on their hearing to learn, developing a much stronger hearing sensitivity.
Theory
Once you understand the basic spacing for the Quarter, Eighth, and Sixteenth notes, we will move on to learn dotted notes and triplets. These are the other two subdivisions that are commonly seen in scores. Triplets is a very often misunderstood and difficult-to-master topic, and your instructor might only choose to move on to either topic when you have a certain mastery of hearing and executing your basic subdivisions. At this point, you will also learn how to read and understand time signatures, with application examples like 6/8, etc.
Rudiments and Accents
Once your foundation has been set with the proper techniques to execute rudiments and accents, your instructor will start you on a few other rudiments like double strokes, paradiddles, etc., along with more accent variations. At this stage, you can briefly in simple forms, but more importantly, it sets the foundations for advanced combinations and playing at the next stage.
Transiting Between Beats
You would have played several songs now with different beat combinations. However, most of the time, the songs given to you require only a single beat throughout. Once you have moved past this stage, your instructor may select a song that consists of more than one beat for you to learn how to transition between different beats using either a fill-in and/or Crash cymbal, depending on the selected song’s needs.
Melodic Fill-Ins
As you start to play more and more songs, your instructor will share different fill-ins to complement the songs you are learning. These could be exact fill-ins played in the original track or a combination that the syllabus or your instructor has come up with to lead you between topics or to strengthen your understanding and capabilities of previous topics. You would also start learning some fundamentals of advanced fill-ins, such as linear patterns, different sticking patterns, or even specific rudiment applications.
Speed
Speed is of essence to playing drums. It does not matter how many combinations or independence you can achieve, but if you cannot play it at the song speed, it is as useful as a chocolate teapot (totally useless). Speed training typically focuses on a few key factors:
- Fundamental single stroke speed (RLRL)
- Dexterity around the drum set (rolls and fills combinations)
- Single leg double kick; at this point, some students might also move towards double pedals.
- Coordination and groove overall speed
Intermediate
The intermediate stage is about building your vocabulary, musical awareness, speed, and applications. You will start to get in contact with more advanced vocabularies to develop your basic beats into something more engaging; you will also be learning how subtle changes in your beats or fills create tension and release to allow your playing to be more dynamic. This, along with the exposure and cross-referencing from multiple genres, will significantly impact how you view music as a whole.
The time spent on the drumset during this stage is essential to your development in playing. Therefore, a vital part of this stage is to develop independence from your instructor, as we equip you with the tools to develop your personal training strategies and direction to develop your sound preferences alongside your instructor.
Vocabulary Building
This includes beats and fill-ins. Your instructor will use a combination of our syllabus and various songs to expand your vocabulary. Your instructor may also use external materials to supplement your development based on their judgment.
This is also where you develop a solid repertoire base in songs and, most importantly, for beats, fill-ins, and their applications.
Intermediate Playing Concepts
You would already understand how each concept (subdivision, time signature, groupings, and sticking) works together from what you have learned. This is where things get interesting, and we combine these playing concepts to form musical patterns that can further create tension.
For example, using a grouping of five sticking patterns (RLRLRR) with a 16th note subdivision to create an “odd” sounding pattern.
Or, using an alternating pattern of three and five pattern, to form a full 16th note bar.
You will also be learning advanced concepts in combining different muscle groups or techniques, like the Moellar or the Push-Pull technique, to deliver a larger sound or faster strokes effectively.
Four Way Independence Workout
Four-way independence is, as the term suggests, a workout to create independence from all four of your limbs. At Intermediate 1, your instructor will let you have a glimpse of some basic foundations of four-way independence exercises; these can include using your hi-hat pedal to create a basic eighth-note rhythm while your other limbs are playing a beat.
It can even become more intricate patterns, developing your left leg into its own rhythm while your other three limbs play a complimentary beat. A good and typical example is in Latin music, where a common and basic beat will be to play a Samba or Baion Ostinato with both of your legs, a clave pattern of your choosing on your non-leading hand (customarily left), and a cascara pattern of your right hand.
Developing Your Own Speed Training Routine
Much like an athlete, you cannot expect your time to complete a 400m race to improve drastically just by attending a 45 mins workout with your trainer weekly. It requires hours of practice and endurance training on end, for months and months of hard work. Therefore, a routine must be created that you can easily follow at home. Your instructor will share different exercises, targeting different techniques and muscle groups, based on your requirements.
Musical Development and Improvisation
Learning drums is useless if you fail to understand how drums can build tension through contrast or building techniques with your fellow musicians. At this point, you will learn how to manipulate different strokes and notes to build up your dynamic for a more musical performance.
For example, playing half-time double-time by shifting your snare note,
Or creating a musical build-up by developing your beats with key motifs or through dynamic applications in both volume and timbre through different ways of using your cymbals/drums.
You will also learn the concepts of improvisation, using the tools taught earlier, along with step-by-step guidance from your instructors to assist you in maturing your sound.
When you reach this stage, you will probably have a vast repertoire of songs spanning multiple genres. You will also be proficient in improvising and have played several live shows. You can even consider playing professionally at paid shows, events, or clubs. Intermediate 2 is designed to fully explore the depths of each concept and develop strong independence to create rhythms.
Most of the topics you learn here are optional for competency, even for professional players; however, by exploring these materials, you can discover different creative patterns that might make you stand out.
Advanced Theory and Playing Concepts
Practice and use rarely applied subdivisions, like quintuplets or septuplets. These concepts must be applied together with the whole band or specific materials that include these subdivisions, or they will risk sounding “off.” You will also be exposed to the concept, as well as different forms of Polyrhythmic patterns and Metric Modulation (changing “perceived time”)
Advanced Four-Way Independence
This module allows you to explore the endless possibilities of Four-way independence. These may include using both legs to create a separate rhythm, together or separately, while your hands maintain a different rhythm, together or separately. The key difference between this module and intermediate 1 is that the patterns will get significantly harder and more thorough through each possible combination in each pattern group.
Musical Style Influence
At this stage, you are already an independent learner, and you likely require the musical influences from your instructors more than the exercises they provide. This includes how your instructor chooses different sticking patterns, sounds, and tones in his professional playing. This stage is more about receiving different influences from different people and developing your unique sound.
have a trial lesson with us
have a trial lesson with us
play your first beat, the right way
Our trial lesson teaches you proper fundamentals and building blocks to instantly understand basic materials. With a crash-course-like structure, you will be equipped with basic music knowledge, different techniques, and their pros and cons. This gives you a deeper understanding of future course materials and sets you on the right path to avoid unnecessary detours.
Assess your weaknesses and strengths
Our trial assessment goes both ways, our instructors are trained to assess your strengths and weaknesses through different checkpoints throughout the lesson. This allows us to comprehensively understand and craft your lesson plan accordingly, focusing on your strengths and improving your weaknesses to allow you to be a competent player quickly.
No commitment required
We believe in our product, and we will not pressure you to make a commitment. Take your time to make your decision after your trial lesson. Even if you don’t enroll afterward, knowing that you are now equipped with proper fundamental knowledge to kick off your journey is good enough for us.
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