No Carol Concert This Year

At a primary school I have had to pullout of the annual carol concert this year. There are a number of reasons for this.
The music needs to be of a good standard because it is a public event and my group is not ready yet.
There has been a big reduction in the time that we can rehearse or allow pupils private practice sessions, so therefore reaching the standard is going to take longer.
The venue is a very small church and even if we were ready there would not be a good position for us to perform where the parents could see there children. So once we have had to move a lot of big and heavy equipment the whole point of the performance is compromised.
In the school the year group that were chosen to perform are known to be a challenge and the music lessons are a good way to develop new learning skills/confidence. So it is important that they have the chance to perform under the best conditions.
I did feel bad about making the decision to start with but as I discussed this situation with the school staff I could see that it was the best thing to do. They will also feedback the issues to the school management and someone may even say " hey, why wasn't Gareth and his drummers at the carol concert this year"

Farewell stromness

Raindrops journey

James Rhodes meets the Arts Council | Highlights | Don't Stop The Music

Billy Higgins Lick

My First Drum Kit

I had four toms and three cymbals but no stool.

Shoshalossa

Worcester Music Festival

Coming up at the end of the month is the music festival in Worcester. I am looking forward to supporting Brian Hoggard at the Worcester Youth Music stage. It will give lots of talented acts in the area a chance to perform their music, can't wait to hear them.

A Third Foot

Reading mozza

Jared Falk One Handed Drum Roll

Song version

Demo song

playing piano in heaven ?

Nine eight eleven eight

lunder the city

Another interesting half term lots of creativity.

Here is Mozambique

mozambique

Check The Technique

When I was lucky enough to sit in at a Jim Chapin workshop he passed on this amazing hand-out.

It gives you all the directions for the technique I demonstrated in the last video. I will post up some more

very soon, because Jim is a great teacher and I cant believe I saw that workshop, it is forever a real

turning point in my development in drumming.

Practise Pad Routine

Chapin Inpiration

Larry Wright NYC street bucket drummer 1990

Overload of larry !

Larry Wright at Buddy Rich Memorial 1991

More Larry this time in a dickie bow

Larry Wright - NYC Bucket Drummer - Excellent Jam (+playlist)

A litte street drumming.

Silver Birds Steel Orchestra - Lady GaGa - Bad Romance

Lots of cool youtube videos are going up this week due to my varied interest in drumming. This band is from Jamacia and there legwork makes me smile.

Jim Chapin on the moeller technique

I did a workshop with this man 12 years ago and he is so inspiring.
G.

Ron Powell

Vinnie,steve and Dave

do you ratamacue ?

a harmonica track

Heres the Lyrics and Chords

This is a nice song

S.O.M.

It will be delivered in a cyclic type of model.

This is all about the content,process/praxis and product.

The meaning of Curriculum is "to run"

The time is right to write this stuff down.

Skyfall

Xpress yo self

Funk.

Stop that train

A first attempt at a tricky rhythm change.     G.

Roots Rock Reggae

Yr 4 warming up and then do the bussiness.

G.

Year 3 Steel Pans

Only a small group of 7 children but hell they are loud !

The James Bond

Out of tune and in a school.

G.

Didadi

This music is Not In The Trinity Syllabus

Tea Break Tuesday

Working on those Guitar skills to play in Morriserys backing Band.
G.

Hi There

I am starting this blog off to offer a forum for music teaching and share resources and ideas. This is an interesting link . G.
http://www.teachingmusic.org.uk