Drum Education Live

Mike's an experienced freelance professional drummer from the UK, who has been lucky enough to perform live and on recordings with many great artists, across a vast range of musical styles.
As an online session drummer, he plays and records drums in his studio for musicians and producers making music projects all over the world. 
He's also a passionate drum teacher working in Wilburton, Cambs, UK. Mike teaches private drum lessons from my studio five days per week.
 
He also co-runs one of the UK's leading party bands The Headliners; which plays at weddings, corporate events and for the military. The band's performed a large number of gigs for clients such as Virgin Atlantic, Nokia, and NATO at top venues including The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and The National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.
Mike studied drums at The Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford, Drumtech drum school in London, and with a host of the UK's top drum tutors.

We had the pleasure of having Michele as our guest in this episode. We talk about Michele's love of tap, how she got started drumming, Brazil and upcoming projects plus much more. 

London based Michèle Drees is an established drummer, latin percussionist, vocalist, guitarist and composer and has been active on the Music scene for more than 30 years.During this time Michèle has played with top Artists across a wide variety of genres including Marc Almond, Kirsty MacColl, Seal, Badmarsh and Shri, Ive Mendes, KD Lang, Susanne Vega, Candy Dulfer, Ian Shaw,  to name but a few. Performing on many of the great stages, Royal Albert Hall, The Barbican, Ronnie Scott’s and numerous Jazz Festivals throughout the world including Montreux.

Michèle's love for tap dance began as a little girl. Mesmerised watching Fred Astaire and the Nicholas Brothers, she has said that it was this influence that sparked her deep love and appreciation for rhythm and the main reason she chose to play the drum kit.

Moving to London in the early 1980's she took up tap dancing and drumming at the same time. Since 2009 Michèle Drees' trio has been the rhythmic bedrock of the London Tap Jam at Ronnie Scott's. This has over the years cemented her understanding of how to support rhythm tappers.

Thirty years on, Michèle has come full circle, returning to her first love; she has created her Jazz Tap Project. The vision behind it is to express the visceral musical connection between these two incredible art forms.

This week we had the pleasure of having the amazing Penny Larson as our guest. We talk about her career,  winning 'Hit Like A Girl', having two bass drums and much more. Enjoy!

Penny Larson is a founding member of Boston-based instrumental progressive rock trio Hypaspace. With the group, Penny has recorded four studio albums and toured the United States and Canada. She has in the past recorded and toured with American troubadour Bryan McPherson. Over the years she has played with many artists in an around Greater Boston and was the first call house drummer for Indecent Music Studios in Medford, MA.

For the past thirteen years, Penny has been a part of the music worship team at The Crossing, an Episcopal congregation in downtown Boston, whose founding ethic is radical welcome, and who believe worship needs the motion of music, i.e., the “Groovement.” Possessing a style driven by melody, dynamics, and passion, fueled by a powerful technical control of the drum set, Penny believes that her drumming is a spiritual act. She, like Lionel Hampton, thinks that “drumming is the best way to get close to God.”

Penny is also a dedicated drum set instructor. The daughter of a drummer, she started learning at age three, and started passing that knowledge on when she was sixteen. For over thirty years, Penny has worked one-on-one with drum set students, and for the last twenty years, she has been a staff instructor at DiCenso’s Drum Shop in Weymouth, MA. Penny has continued to study drumming, including attending Berklee College of Music from 1994-1998, studying under Ed Kaspik, Nancy Zeltsman, and Skip Hadden. In 2015, she attended the Rhythm Retreat, where she studied with Billy Cobham and Dave Weckl. Penny believes that every drummer is different and has developed a highly customizable curriculum.

Penny was a member of the Drum Corps International A-60 Division World Champion St. Francis Xavier Sancians in 1985 and 1986, was a finalist in Boston’s Best Drummer in 1990, received the Youth Concerts at Symphony Hall award from Berklee College of Music in 1998, and was the Hit Like a Girl Contest 40+ Champion in 2019. Penny recently performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) in Indianapolis, IN, as part of the Hit Like a Girl Contest Showcase.

Penny is an educational artist for Vater Percussion.

This week we have Colin Woolway with us as we discuss his career, teaching methods and some cool practice ideas.

Colin Woolway is a well known drummer, teacher and the author of Drumsense Volumes 1 & 2, which are rapidly becoming the standard books for teaching beginners to play the drum kit. As a professional drummer he toured the world for 20 years, including eight years as Suzi Quatro´s drummer, and then hung up his touring boots to concentrate on teaching. This resulted in a very busy teaching studio, the aforementioned books, a percussion video and more recently, the Drumsense Teaching Programme.

This episode we invite drum student Janine to join us and we try and help her with some frustrations she's facing on her drumming journey.
Janine started drumming later in life and has an amazing story you can see here on her instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/janine.c.fox/

This week we speak to Dom Famularo about living in the moment, playing open handed and why exactly rehearsals are for cowards. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

His sensational drumming and brilliant communications skills have earned Dom Famularo a reputation of being the world’s leading motivational drum set artist / educator. Through history-making tours of China and the Far East, and with standing ovations to capacity audiences at virtually every major drumming event in Europe and the Americas, this vibrant performer from Long Island, New York is renowned for delivering entertaining and awe-inspiring performances unlike any other. Tutored by legendary greats Joe Morello, Jim Chapin, Al Miller, Charlie Perry, Colin Bailey, Shelly Manne, Papa Jo Jones and Ronnie Benedict, Dom combines the masterful techniques of the past with the parameter-pushing concepts of today’s music for a highly creative and uniquely personal style of drumming.

This week we had the pleasure of talking with the 'Godmother of Drumming' Dorothea Taylor! What a treat it was to speak with her about her life, drum corps and her career so far.

Dorothea has been drumming since she was 13-years-old - became an internet sensation after uploading a video of herself playing paradiddles to Instagram in 2019. Her demonstrations and explanations of rudiments caught the attention of online drum lesson site, Drumeo, and Dorothea was invited to become a Drumeo coach.

This week we chat to Pete Riley about his influences, what he's practicing, his studio set up and more.
Pete is a highly-respected drummer and educator, having worked with the likes of Republica, Guthrie Govan (The Aristocrats), Billy Sheehan, and Keith Emerson. He's also known for a twenty-year-plus tenure as a content creator for Rhythm magazine.

In the first episode of Drum Education Live we speak to the amazing Pete Cater.
Pete took us through his early beginnings on the drums and gave insight in to his fantastic book "On Drums".
Pete is a freelance drummer specialising in acoustic jazz and big band music although not exclusively. Leader of the Pete Cater Big Band since 1982. This band has produced 3 highly acclaimed CDs, broadcast on BBC and has appeared in theatres, concert halls and jazz festivals all over the UK.