Sherwin - Drums teacher - New York
1st lesson free
Sherwin - Drums teacher - New York

Sherwin's profile and their contact details have been verified by our experts

Sherwin

  • Rate $59
  • Response 11h
Sherwin - Drums teacher - New York

$59/h

1st lesson free

Contact

1st lesson free

1st lesson free

  • Drums
  • Percussion
  • Jazz Drumming

Learn Drums with Sherwin: Friendly, Practical Lessons for Beginners and Players of All Levels

  • Drums
  • Percussion
  • Jazz Drumming

Lesson location

About Sherwin

Many students who come to me already know the sound they want, usually from a record they play along to in the car. What they often lack is a way to get from that sound to their own hands. So my lessons start with the groove rather than the exercise book. If you bring a song you love, we will listen to it several times before anyone touches a stick. I will ask you to tap the part that repeats, then to sing the hi-hat line while I keep the kick going. Whether you are sitting down for your first session or coming back to a kit after a long break, the first question is the same: what is the song doing that makes you want to move? Only once you can hear that answer do we look at technique, and then only at the part that is getting in the way.

Here is how I handle the most common frustration on the kit: a fill or a hi-hat pattern that works at a slow tempo and falls apart the moment you speed up. Instead of repeating the whole thing, I isolate the exact point where it breaks. It is usually one transition, often the move from the snare back to the hi-hat, or a left hand crossing to a tom. We loop only that two-beat bridge at a tempo where you can still get it right, then raise the tempo in small steps and watch for the moment the strokes stop sounding even. That moment tells us what to fix. Sometimes the sticks are held too high, so the rebound arrives late. Sometimes the foot is doing more work than it needs to, so I will ask you to keep the heel down and let the ankle do the pushing. For a child, the same idea can become a game: they play the bridge while I count out loud, and the question is whether they finish on the beat. For an adult with a full week ahead, I might give a three-minute version to repeat on a practice pad before bed.

For more advanced players, the same method works on material that looks impossible. Say you are learning a song in 7/8, or a double-bass pattern you can play in pieces but not as one line. I take the piece apart into its skeleton: the kick and snare alone, then the ride alone, then the two together with nothing else added. Often the passage is not hard in itself. It is simply several lines layered on top of each other that nobody has separated yet. When we rebuild it, I like to change the rhythm of one limb on purpose, for example playing the feet as plain quarter notes while the hands carry the full pattern, so we can see which hand or foot is actually slipping. Improvisation works in a similar way. I might give you a limit, such as toms only for four bars, or a ride pattern that cannot change, and you have to make your choices inside that boundary. The limit shows you why you chose a particular fill, instead of playing whichever one came to hand.

My teaching is patient, but the patience has a definite shape. If an explanation of wrist motion does not land, I stop talking and play the same figure on a pillow or a tabletop with sticks, then ask you to feel where the rebound sits in your forearm rather than trying to think about it. If that does not work either, I change the demonstration to a slower tempo or switch to a different kind of listening. I might play the groove while you close your eyes and tell me where the snare falls. You leave each lesson with one or two things to try before next time and a clear idea of what to listen for when you practice alone. Over time the aim is that you can diagnose your own problems: you will notice when a passage starts to rush, when the hi-hat is drowning out the snare, and which change to make first. A lesson with me should feel like sitting down with someone who wants to hear you play, not someone grading you.

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About the lesson

  • All Levels
  • English

All languages in which the lesson is available :

English

**Drums: About the Lessons**

I think of a drum beat as a handful of separate jobs: keeping time, placing the backbeat, the bass drum, the hi-hat, and the fills that connect everything. In my lessons we learn to hear and practise each job on its own before putting them back together. Most drum frustration comes from this kind of problem. You can play a fill slowly and cleanly, but once the tempo rises, the last four notes start to lurch forward, and you are not sure whether your hands or your timing are to blame. Usually the timing is the issue, because the fill was never practised against a steady pulse with the hi-hat still going. We fix that directly instead of drilling the fill harder.

The main tool I use is subtraction. We play a beat with every limb working, then remove one element at a time. Drop the hi-hat and keep the kick and snare. Then drop the kick and keep the snare and hi-hat. Each removal shows you which limb is leaning, hurrying or dragging, and you learn to hear it rather than guess. For a complete beginner, this is how the first lesson works: a basic rock beat is only two limbs playing a simple pattern, and most people can get it steady within an hour without ever touching a fill. For someone who already plays, the same process might reveal that a double-bass pattern loses its evenness on the second foot at a fast tempo, which is a very different problem from a sloppy hand. The method stays the same; what changes is how much you are asked to remove and how quickly we put it back.

We also work with recordings, and I like to choose the song with you. If you love a particular track, I will map it with you in bars and sections, and we will loop only the four bars before the chorus. Then we look for the exact beat where the fill begins to drift, which is usually the transition from the last tom hit into the crash. We practise that transition alone, slow and then at full speed, until it stops collapsing. Students often tell me this changes how they listen: they start to recognise where they are in a song by its sounds and landmarks, not by counting frantically. With children I often use the crash cymbal as a landmark, and we count in fours with a call and response, so it feels like a game rather than a worksheet. With teenagers, it is usually their own songs that give the lesson its purpose. With adults practising at home, we set up a quieter routine on a practice pad or with headphones and a metronome, so you can work seriously without waking anyone.

My aim is for you to leave each lesson needing me less. At the end of most sessions, you should know which element was leaning, what tempo to return to, and one small thing to listen for on your own before we meet again. Over time, you start to diagnose yourself: you notice that you rush a fill because your left shoulder is tense, or that your hi-hat gets louder when you are nervous, and you know what to try. If you are returning to drums after a break, we start from what you still remember, and I check that before adding anything new, so you are not repeating material you already own.

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Rate

  • $59

Pack rates

  • 5h: $295
  • 10h: $590

free lessons

This first lesson offered with Sherwin will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

  • 1hr

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  • $59/h

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All languages in which the lesson is available

English

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This first lesson offered with Sherwin will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

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