Updated 3 November 1998

Welcome to my Lessons Page. I sincerely hope you find some interesting and challenging grooves and ideas here.

I've placed a Previous Lessons archive here. Enjoy!

As an addition to my lessons here, I also offer:

Virtual Lessons

The lessons are on disk and feature written grooves and Real Audio files. You can open them up in your browser, and provided you have Real Audio on your hard disk, you can listen and learn the grooves. Each lesson, with up to 10 grooves and exercises, costs US$10 plus $3 postage.

Although not yet on my order form, you can email me with credit card information and I will process it for you then send the lessons to you. If you like, you can also send a check to my address at the bottom of this page.

Video Lessons

are also available. I really enjoy teaching by video tape. I can take my time, when I've got the time!, and focus on the grooves that you want. Please email me for info about this and audio lessons by cassette.

Audio Lessons

I've had some good success teaching drummers by audio cassette. Once again, if I can be of any help, please write.

Private Lessons

I live in Southern California and am very happy to be able to teach here at my home studio. My students and I are a nice family, the atmosphere's cool, and we play and learn together. See you here if possible!

More Great Melodic Exercises courtesy of Changuito
Master Drummer from Cuba

For those of you who have been frequent visitors here, thanks! You've been seeing some of the concepts on which I've been working. This is something that is relatively new to my music stand. It's a groove that Changuito tapped out for me on the dashboard of my car, when I was living in Miami, Florida.

This exercise is very, very melodic. It requires some very intense concentration to learn to perform this correctly. Heck, I've just begun to practice it and I've found it to be very challenging and also very fulfilling. For me, it's a wonderful goal to aim for.

Here's the way the melodic exercise was played for me, first on my dashboard, later on timbales. The right hand (or left hand!) is playing the cascara pattern. Chango plays it on the bell. The other hand moves in between the low and high timbales (the hembra and macho, respectively).

I've realized that I need to break down the exercise into smaller parts in order to simplify it, both mentally and physically. Here's what I've done, basically breaking it into two three measure phrases, and not moving between two drums, just staying on one. As you can see, each three measure phrase begins on a different measure of the (2 measure) cascara.

Next for me, aftetr I get this really swinging, is to play clave with either hand and play this melodic groove, and then play clave with my left foot and start to really orchestrate. Hmm.....seems like a few months worth of fun!

If you enjoy these lessons, and develop your own grooves, please share them with us! You can mail me your applications of these lessons to:

Previous Lessons

Changuito Lessons
Double Bass Cowbell Lessons
Latin Hand Patterns
Latin Rudiments 5 against 2 Hand Patterns

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