Red Sparkle Drum Studio

Teaching Drums : Sharing Music : Having Fun ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Seattle drum lessons

Student Quotes

"Mark is an amazing teacher and he really knows how to help you get all the basics down. He has helped me set up a foundation to continue playing for the future. He's just cool.".......Berkeley, age 14

"When I was taught by Mark I never once had a week where I felt overwhelmed with what was expected. I never had a week where I learned nothing and above all never had a week where I didn't have fun. Mark is truly a great teacher. He knows the right mixture of skills and other things that are important to drumming, also when to change something and when to encourage it. He allowed me to learn as I wished but we always learned."........Marshall, age 14

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.

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.

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