drumming secrets

It all started when i was studying  with Mark Eshuis at the conservatory of Alkmaar, he told me that when I graduated and felt the need to take some lessons Juan van Emmerloot is the guy to study with.

So after a few years  I decided to contact him , he told that he was not giving private drum lessons anymore because of his demanding schedule but if I wanted I could make an arrangement with “CODARTS” (Conservatory of Rotterdam) where he teaches to students from all over the world.

After a while  Juan contacted me and we made an appointment  for  my first lesson, we talked a little bit  about what I was doing, where I’ve studied, and my goals to achieve in  10 lessons spread out over  one year.

I told him that I wanted to focus on my groove playing because  I’ve always been a technical player and when you’re too technical the music you create sounds stiff and computerized!, Juan told me that this was a great goal to work on and certainly within reach.

The first half year we’ve concentrated on  playing and composing different grooves such as cowbell groove ‘s ,creating multiple sounds out of  the drumkit and incorporating it into these groove’s, two measure groove’s creating an thinking longer phrases, various stickings and groupings with the hands and feet, and in general make a good sound.

We’ve also talked a lot about seeing  the whole drumkit as one instrument not as different  instruments that can be played, and play what the music asks  for. The  technique serves the music not the other way around.

That really helped me open my eyes, suddenly I’ve gotten to the stage  of seeing the big picture and a lot more of headroom in my playing because I was leaving things out instead of playing every four bars  a  of weird kind grouping fit into a 5 against 4 polyrythm or something like that, It’s not gonna give you the gig!!

The second half year we’ve spend  on recording, at Codarts they have a real nice recording studio so Juan brought in some pieces of music of his own and Stef Burns wich is a guitarist he plays with , quit difficult to play but a real challenge for me. First of all I had to make some charts of it so I could understand the form, time signature’s  etc…

The main goal for every lesson was to create a real recording situation where you come in , get the charts, play and record with Juan playing the role of producer.

After we’ve recorded a song we listen to it, after we’ve listened we talked about how to approach the song musically so it has more of a flow, I’ve found out that flow is the key word here!

Then we did another take with all the information we’ve talked about in mind, but at the moment of playing/recording not really thinking about it, This way of thinking/playing helped me to play more organic and various ideas starting to come out.

Eventually we’ve recorded four songs and as time went by you could hear a certain degree of progress in my playing, it was more loose and musical! and also very important is the fact I came to the conclusion that I  just have  to be me and put my own personality into the music instead of copying  drummers like Neal Peart, Vinnie Colaiuta, Tony Williams etc ….

I think the overall approach of Juan is  great and it really took my playing to a higher level.

So if you ever get a chance to study with Juan do it,  because he’s a great player, great teacher and a motivator

 Mark van der Werf, drummer/teacher.