Lesson Materials
To begin taking drum lessons all that you will need is a pair of drum sticks. If you are a beginner and do not have drum sticks I will be happy to give you a pair at our first lesson and then discuss what stick is best for you. If you want to purchase sticks before our lesson a good pair to start with is a wooden tip 5B which can be found at any music store.
After our first lesson (if you don't already have a drum set) you will need a practice pad and a metronome. Metronomes can be tricky for us drummers because drums have the tendency to be louder than the metronome. Using a practice pad helps as well as having a metronome with a headphone jack. If you have a drum set you may be interested in purchasing practice pads that fit over the drum set. Also you will want to have a music stand for reading from our lesson books.
I use 2 books from which to teach.
1) Alfred's drum method 1 - $11
2) Basic Drumming by Joel Rothman - $27
We may or may not begin with the books but eventually both will need to be purchased. I have these available for purchase at our lessons.
Buying a drum set is an investment and a decent new drum set with cymbals can be purchased for $500-$800 dollars. If you are craigslist savvy you may find a good used set for less. I will be available to make suggestions about buying a drum set. If you'd like I will go to the music store with you to look at and try out drum sets and then come to your home to get everything set up.
Drum set, like any musical instrument, is an investment and I can tell you that from my mother's intial investment of years of music lessons and numerous drum sets I have been able to give back to her in countless ways. And to this day she still has the joy of buying me drums for my birthday.
Thanks...Mark DiFlorio