Drum Lessons for Kids/Beginners/Adults & Online Drum Teachers

Drum Student

Our drum teachers are some of the best drum teachers in the area and enjoy teaching students just like you how to play drums and other percussion instruments. Most of our students want to learn to play a 5-piece drum kit, but many are also in band and/or orchestra classes at their K-12 school and are required to play lots of different types of percussion instruments! There are more than 100 different percussion instruments of both the tuned and auxiliary (untuned) varieties! Please call us to let us know which percussion instrument(s) you are interested in learning. We would love to schedule music lessons for you with a percussion or drum teacher that fits your needs and makes learning to play a fun experience for you or your child.

4/4 School of Music has been chosen more than 20,000 times by local families for their music education needs over the past 17 years! Contact us today to get started learning at any of our 12 schools or online via Zoom!

- Tyler Tullock / Director

The best online drum lessons for beginners (and more advanced drummers) via Zoom.

We offer private, 1-on-1 online drum lessons via Zoom. More than 2,500 students have taken online lessons with us in the past year alone! In fact, ZoomMusicLessons.com is another way to get to our website. Online music lessons are an effective and popular way to learn drums. Online (remote/virtual) drum lessons have become extremely popular as there are many benefits to taking online/virtual drum lessons such as:

The best age to start drum lessons for kids.

Kids as young as five can learn to play music but it is usually best if they wait until the age of seven to take drum lessons. Children ages five or six usually have better success as drummers if they start with Ukulele lessons or Piano lessons for a year or two first. Both of those instruments require less focus and offer more variety to keep the really young student interested. Drum students that have taken a year or two of piano or guitar/ukulele have a big head-start when they transition to drum lessons at the age of seven. Learning and improving rhythm is a big part of learning all musical instruments!

To become proficient at drumming you need to be able to focus on playing beats and rhythm patterns over and over to work on your timing and coordination. Most 5 and 6 year olds don't really have the attention span to be able to concentrate on the same task over and over and over at that age. Some five year olds are naturally highly focused, but most benefit by waiting until the age of seven to play drums. There are definitely exceptions to this guideline. For example if one of the student's parents is a musician, then starting at age 5 or 6 can be successful. Please call us if you have any questions! We are happy to help you decide what is right for your child.

Private drum lessons or drum classes? Which do you offer and which is better?

We only offer private drum lessons (except for our fun summer camps) because students learn faster and get more out of them! The one-on-one nature (just you and your teacher) of private lessons allow the teacher to customize each lesson, song, exercise, and musical challenge to your exact needs at that exact point in your learning process. We offer drumming and percussion camps in the summertime for those that want to combine a social component with learning drums, percussion, and timing. They are super-fun and because they are 3 hours a day for 5 days in a row, you can learn a lot in those camps! But all campers graduate to private lessons or are already enrolled in them. It's simply the best way to learn to play any musical instrument.

How long are the lessons?

Most of our drum students take weekly half-hour lessons with the same teacher each week. We do offer hour-long drum lessons but they aren't necessary unless you are a more advanced student or if you have difficulty learning. In those instances, a 60-minute weekly lesson can be better. Some beginning students will enroll in hour-long weekly lessons as they just really enjoy spending the extra time with their teacher and progressing faster than normal or using that extra time each week to learn at a more leisurely pace. It's entirely up to you! We generally suggest starting with 30-minute lessons and then increasing to 60 minutes if/when you feel you are ready.

You don't have to know anything about music to learn to play drums.

No worries. Drums are a fantastic instrument for beginning musicians! Your teacher will introduce you to drum music as you learn to play. Drum music notation is different than music notation for other instruments and is much easier to learn! Many drummers never learn how to read drum music written on a page and simply learn the songs by ear. The styles of music you enjoy playing and the personal goals you set for yourself or your child will determine whether reading drum music is part of your drum lesson program. You can always change your mind too. That is one of the major advantages of our private 1-on-1 music lessons, immense flexibility. In fact, you can even change drum teachers at any time at 4/4 School of Music if you wish to go in a different direction with your drum lessons. Drum students do it all the time!

Should I start on an acoustic drum set or an electric drum set?

If you are a beginner it doesn't really matter whether you start on an electric drum set or an acoustic one. There are some advantages to each. The cost is similar between electric and acoustic drums. You can wear headphones with electric drums and you can put rubber pads (silencers) on acoustic drums to bring the volume down somewhat. Please speak with your drum teacher about which drum set is right for you, your lifestyle, and your budget.

Drummers often start on one type but then move on to purchase the other type and vice-versa. Many students even start on just an inexpensive rubber practice pad for the first month or two. For the most part, electric and acoustic drum kits are played the same way. If you can play one, you can play the other. There are a few things you can do on each that you can't do on the other for example: With acoustic drums, you can play really softly and with brushes for quiet jazz songs. That's not as easy to do on an electronic drum kit. On an electric drum set (kit) you can make sounds that an acoustic drum set makes but you can also make any sound in the world! If you can hear it, you can play it on an electric drum set. Car horns, guitar chords, even dog barks, and exotic percussion instruments from around the world!

You really can't go wrong with either unless you need the drum student to practice quietly or with headphones at times. In that case, you definitely want an electric drum set :-) You can always call our school office and someone will be happy to help guide your decision!

Please see our Drum Buyer's Guide. It has a lot of advice on instruments you can purchase that will be excellent for you to start with.

Fun performance opportunities for drummers at 4/4 School of Music concerts!

All performances are optional at 4/4 School of Music. There's no pressure and no worries! Each year we offer multiple opportunities for students of all ages and levels to perform in live and recorded streaming performances! Drummers can perform solo or with others in bands at our student concerts. You can even perform at our concerts in other states if you wish! In 2020 and 2021, during Covid lockdowns, we have had more than 1,000 performers record and stream their performances worldwide! It's been a blast and a fantastic learning experience for all of us. Some entire families got in on the act recording the family band for our streaming concerts. Having fun together playing music is a fantastic family activity that is rewarding, educational, and a great way to emotionally bond with multiple generations in your household.

Contact us today to get started with drum lessons! Visit our about us page to learn more about our 12 family-owned music schools or choose one below.

See our home page to learn more about drum lessons!

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