My COVID Vaccination Experience

With many people experiencing serious side effects from the COVID-19 vaccines I wanted to share my experiences. In the Moderna clinical trials 57 percent of people experienced side effects after the first dose and 82 percent of people experienced side effects after the second dose.  The younger age group experienced more swelling and tenderness from the injection site. This might be because their immune systems are more potent. Since teaching and playing drums requires very active use of my body I wanted to share my experiences with the vaccine.

Here are the videos sharing my experiences from my first dose Moderna COVID19 vaccination.

Basic Subdivisions (video)

It’s so important to be able to play different note values evenly within tempo. In order to internalize the subdivisions it’s helpful to play them against a quarter note. In this video we’ll play quarter notes with our feet and the subdivisions (Quarter Notes, Eighth Notes, Eighth Note Triplets, and Sixteenth) as alternating single strokes. We play the quarter note under all the subdivisions in order to establish that as our anchor. This video is especially valuable to beginners.

 

Download the Basic Subdivisions PDF




Group Bucket Drumming Lesson Plan

If your looking for an easy lesson plan for a group drumming class I recommend buckets. Bucket drumming is easy to pickup and you can easily buy 5-gallon buckets in bulk at places like Lowes or Amazon.

We can easily get different tones out of a bucket by turning the bucket upside down and hitting it with a drum stick. If we strike the bucket towards the center we get a lower pitch. If we hit the rim and the bucket simultaneously, we get a higher pitch–closer to a snare drum. Drummers call this a rim shot. Striking only the rim of the bucket is another option for the higher pitch–which might be easier for beginners.

I created a simple lesson plan with three parts that segments the students into three groups:

  1. Pulse
  2. Bass
  3. Snare

The pulse part can be played on the rim or on the sides of the buckets. The snare part is played utilizing rim shots and the bass part is played by striking towards the center of the bucket. Here are the parts:


 

Download the Bucket-Drumming-Lesson PDF




Note: In case you don’t read notation I included the number counts that correspond to the notes. The rhythms repeat indefinitely. The video below demonstrates a class playing the three parts together:

Learning how to use my body in drumming and in life

I had the opportunity of studying Alexander technique at ACAT (American Center for the Alexander Technique) for one year. Alexander technique, developed by F.M. Alexander, is an educational process that teaches a set of skills for managing one’s mind and body towards the direction of lightness, freedom and ease.

I first learned about the technique while studying at The Drummer’s Collective in 2001. One of The Collective’s administrators (Sandra Reid) was an Alexander Teacher. During my first lesson Sandra guided me through an Alexander lie down called “Constructive rest.” This self-help tool involves lying down on a firm surface with knees elevated, feet flat on the floor, and some books or magazines under the head.  This position promotes functional spinal alignment and creates an opportunity to release tension.  It’s also a good moment to focus on your breath and observe small movements while experiencing good body use. Suffice it to say my body desperately needed this.

After my initial lesson, I continued Alexander work on and off for fifteen years. Most of my early lessons were based around sitting and standing up from a chair. The chair is an Alexander tool that is used to re-educate the body’s movement patterns. My body learned new patterns for sitting, standing and being in a chair.  As a drummer and heavy computer user, this was extremely useful for me.

In 2016 I got into an unfortunate car wreck. I was lucky to have escaped without any permanent body damage but I did have nine bone fractures, soft tissue damage, and severe whiplash. I decided to take my AT practice more seriously and enrolled in the health and well-being program at ACAT in New York City.

This intensive style of study gave me an opportunity to practice and study Alexander Technique with master teachers for up to sixteen hours per week. The program also gave me a new perspective towards my drum teaching.

As private music teachers we have a ton of influence over our students (especially young beginners.) We tend to teach technique focusing only on the individual parts of the body. For example, most drum instructors teach stick technique from the hands and arms without considering the rest of the body. This specific viewpoint could be limiting for many reasons.  The Alexander approach would take a look at the whole individual and then use the technique to re-educate movements that are needed to play the instrument (without added muscular tension) thus educating the student’s kinesthetic sense. For this reason, I think it’s important for students to have Alexander Technique lessons along with learning their instrument. This combination will go a long way towards avoiding any repetitive muscle injuries further down the road.

I’ve been able to incorporate Alexander technique into my music lessons by observing my students and giving verbal suggestions. For example, if a student is engaging muscles that aren’t needed to execute a particular drum pattern I would first make them aware of what they are doing and then ask him or her to see if they could play the pattern a different way that doesn’t require as much tension.  I also utilize “Body mapping,” which is a developed modality that applies anatomy to help understand and improve movement. Many of my drum students improve their use after I explain how our bodies are built, where our joints are, and how our limbs and torsos can move more in alignment with this design. This new awareness could influence the way students use their bodies to drum which in time could inspire deeper exploration of their movements and kinesthetic sense.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Alexander Technique I recommend checking out Body Learning by Michael Gelb. This book explains what the Alexander Technique is as well as detailing some of the technique’s basic principals. I also recommend Back Trouble by Deborah Caplan for back pain and recovery.