I started learning to play the drums about a year ago. These days you can find free lessons for just about anything online. I found there are loads of drum lessons on Youtube. I followed a few teachers there to get updates. Of course they would be trying to sell courses and lessons as they have to make a living.
Something that came up a lot was Drumeo. This is something bigger than an individual teacher. As well as a permanent staff they have lessons and courses by loads of professional players, including a fair few I had heard of. They post lots of videos on their channel such as this one.
A few years back I paid a subscription to Artistworks for the rock guitar course by Paul Gilbert. I did that for over a year and it was pretty good. As well as a series of lessons you could submit a video of your playing and Paul would do a video response where he would give you personal tips. I had quite a few of those and you could view all the videos he had done for other people. I would recommend it and they have many top players teaching other styles and instruments.
I had decided to pay for Drumeo as I liked the look of what they were offering. I was going to wait until Christmas, but then they offered a big discount for Black Friday and I went for it. Even at normal price it is about $20 per month and that would not even pay for one lesson with a teacher.
There is a whole course on there that takes you from the total basics through to complex techniques. I am working my way through that, but will look at other parts too. I think it just helps to have some structure to your learning. You can dive into all sorts of things, but it does help to learn the basic techniques first.
They have transcriptions of thousands of songs that you can play along with. I need to explore that. As with Artistworks there is a facility to submit your videos, but I have not figured that out yet.
One thing I had not realised when I signed up is that I also get access to their other schools for piano, singing and guitar. I will have a look at those too when I find time. I could certainly use some tips on singing.
I will be reporting on my progress. I will post some videos of what I learn and probably some of me playing along to their backing tracks. I will be trying to do something from the site most days, but I think I can easily get my moneys worth.
They do provide a link to share with friends to get a month of free access. I can only give out a few of these, so let me know if you are interested. People I actually know will get priority.
I am interested to hear if others have experience of this or other online music schools. I may also look into getting in-person lessons with a local teacher some time. I think that can have value too. I had years of classical guitar lessons as a kid, but then the web did not exist then. I have had other guitar lessons and some for singing.
Rock on!
