Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. All opinions expressed are my own.
One of the things I love the most is watching my children grow and learn. I think all parents would agree with that statement. At 8 and 5 we are at “great ages” for this, for all things really. Each age and stage of childhood has brought with it special moments and challenges. These ages however, have shown me major maturity, growth, and with it both character and personality development. They are truly coming into their own with what they enjoy reading, listening to, and doing. One place where this is really starting to shine, is with (A) and his drum lessons at The New City School of Music.
Having been attending for just a little over a year now, Andrew has determined that (A) is ready to increase his lesson length. This shows major attention span growth, as well as endurance both mentally and physically. This new lesson length came with it some changes in the way he plays and practices. Since (A) has a rudimentary knowledge of reading music as well as playing now, Andrew often plays right along side of him. This gives (A) confidence, and makes it fun for him (even when doing stick work- which is technique training). But along with this change in technique work, Andrew has continued, and even highlighted the need to play for fun, for enjoyment, and for the love of music.
All along (A) has been assigned homework to practice on a nightly basis during the week. It usually consists of some stick work, as well as reading and playing a few “fills” and whatnot. Andrew has kicked it up a notch and asked (A) to jam for homework. Once a week, he is supposed to forget the work from the book and just jam. Make up his own fills, beat on the drums and play along to some favorite songs. In fact, each night in addition to his usual practice, he is supposed to play along with a song that he enjoys. Listening critically, figuring out the notes being played, and then playing along with them, in time including any fills.
This teaching of the whole child is something that Andrew has excelled at all along. He isn’t just reading music, or teaching traditional music theory (although he is getting plenty of that- as I type he is learning how to write an “accent” in drum music), its about teaching how to “hear” the music. To break it down into its it smaller parts, to learn how it all fits together. The timing, the harmonies, all of it. More importantly, its about my 8 year old son learning to love all aspects of music, listening, experiencing and playing it.
As a result of this approach, I don’t have to force him to practice. He isn’t upset when its time to come to his lesson, in fact he’s usually ready to go early and upset if its not quite time to go. He loves to chat with Andrew, to play with him, to talk music with him. All of it.
As I’ve watched (A) mature and grow with the drumming, I am also noticing that he is maturing and his endurance (mental and physical) for schoolwork is improving. His reading and fluency is improving, and his mathematical abilities have improved. His knowledge of mathematical concepts like fractions is well beyond what I would think it would be for his age, but why not, we have a metronome going at least 15 minutes a night at our house, and he’s reading complex drum phrases and changing time along with the notes he sees.
RNYD and I couldn’t be happier that he’s loving it so much and growing with the music. I have a post coming soon to talk about his most recent performance, that was a real doozie for us. As a show of how much we love our lessons, and our readers, The New City School of Music is currently offering a $55 registration for free to students who mention RocklandNYMom and register by 1/15/19!
