The key to creative freedom. Most lessons include improvisation sections, and you should allow the student plenty of time to experiment. Encourage them to try new ideas, and remind them that making mistakes is part of the process if they’re having trouble. You can always simplify things with a constraint (such as moving fills around in a specific order instead of any order) before opening it back up again.

Counting out loud is essential to learning how to read rhythms. Anytime new rhythms are being learned (which is most of the lessons in this book), make sure the student gets practice counting out loud, whether that be before they play a rhythm, or while they play it. For newer students, I always start by playing and counting the “Note Types” warmup (found in the Warmup Index) at the beginning of each lesson.

Sticking is a set of rules that we give ourselves to make playing rhythms around the kit easier. All of the sticking in this book is grid based. That is to say, for any given beat, the smallest note value determines the grid we think in terms of. For example, consider the rhythm “1 an a.” The smallest note value is a 16th note. How do we play the number, the “an,” and the “a” when playing 16th notes? RRL.

Do not underestimate the importance of grid-based sticking for dumset playing. When the student becomes more advanced, you can let them know that sometimes rules are meant to be broken. Eventually they will need to make their own sticking decisions. But teach them the “correct” way first.

Grooves are the lifeblood of drumming. After getting comfortable with a groove, the student should always spend time practicing the groove with fills. Since most western music is built from phrases of 4 measures, they should practice 3 measures of keeping time (playing the grooves) and a one-measure fill (or simply play the fill in the fourth measure if practicing shorter fills), and repeating.

For this book, grooves are kept very simple. The only thing focused on is kick patterns for 8th note grooves. Have the student practice fill improvisation with different grooves as they learn them. I typically start with having the student play new sections with just the classic rock beat, and tell them to practice at home with harder grooves. The same applies if we’re reviewing something they’ve learned: if it’s not too distracting, use more difficult grooves.