Stephanie Barker, Caryn Havlik and Jessie Nelson were just a few of the names I received from Mindy Abovitz, the Creator/Editor of Tom Tom Magazine, when I asked about kick-butt female drum instructors based in NYC.Tom Tom Magazine, “A Magazine About Female Drummers,” seeks “to strengthen and build the community of otherwise fragmented female musicians and to create a network of musicians around the world.” These are just three of the ladies helping the cause by offering their expertise to all those NYCers who’d rather bang on shit than perfect their downward facing dog.
Could you explain your businesses in just a few sentences to start us off?
SB: Right now I am teaching lessons via the internet, and using youtube to reach out to drummers all around the world. I am also starting to teach private lessons in NYC.
CH: Caryn’s school of guided beatings is my teaching classes and private lessons on evenings and weekends, the better to expand the army of drummers. I do it because it’s fun and rewarding to pass on what I think I know. The added bonus is that it helps to pay for my band’s expenses (rehearsal space rent, making records, and touring).
JN: I freelance gig and teach. Gigs: musical theater / jazz. Teaching: drums / percussion.
Where did you get your start learning how to drum?
SB: I was in 6th grade and had some inclination in me to want to play. I had a pair of sticks and would play on my living room carpet. Then when I was in 7th grade I decided to join band in school, and thats where I began to learn the instrument.
CH: In a basement in Madison. Wisconsin with my first drumset. Also, I watched my dad play bongos as I grew up.
JN: I started late at the age of 17 after playing flute for ten years.
Stephanie Barker by Lauren Keefe
Why drums over any other instrument?
SB: I really have no idea how it started. My mother tells me that I randomly asked for a drum set when I was three years old. I got a little clown one, and from then on I have just loved playing. It is so intense, energetic, powerful, and soulful all at once.
Why did you decide to begin teaching?
SB: I began to teach when I was in High School actually. I was helping a lot of people in my drum line, and I really enjoyed being able to see people progress. I decided to teach privately, and I still love seeing someone progress and feel confidant about themselves. It it great to be able to witness someone achieve a goal.
CH: My boss knew that I played, and he had a daughter who was a teenager at the time. He asked if I gave lessons. I suspected that I had the teaching gene, so I said, Sure! Why not try to explain how to hear the parts and then how to make your hands and feet obey what you hear?
JN: I needed to earn income and teaching never felt like work.
What is your student demographic like? Kids, guys, girls?
Caryn Havlik via http://www.myspace.com/carynhavlik
CH: As young as 5 years old, and up to a 62 year old. The students are predominantly girls and women, although I gave my most favorite set of lessons to my Dad, explaining an AC/DC song, how to understand notation, and how to get better speed in your hands.
What does one need to begin taking lessons?
SB: The desire to learn, and a pair of drums.
CH: The ability to know right from left, a curious ear, and a set of drumsticks. A practice pad is a great asset as well.
JN: Just a willingness to try.
Where do classes normally take place?
SB: Online classes are of course everywhere and anywhere. Privately they are in NYC, but I am in the middle of a move right now so I have not found a permanent space. I also travel to the students home if that is an option.
CH: I teach year-round group lessons through the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls Music Lab in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. It’s a shared space that can fit 5 drum kits in a room. It’s so satisfying to hear them all at once. I also teach at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls every summer. Alternately, my bandmates and spacemates help me by being as flexible as they can to accommodate sometime one-on-one lessons at our rehearsal space in Bushwick, Brooklyn on Sundays (“drumchurch”).
JN: I either come to students and teach at their home or when I have a practice space, they come to me.
What do students complain is the hardest part about learning to drum?
SB: The coordination. Having each limb doing something different, and being able to keep track of each limb physically and mentally.
CH: Keeping hands and feet separate from the other or keeping them together.
JN: Being able to play a steady simple beat takes the ability to practice slowly and most students don’t have the patience to do that.
Jessie Nelson via jessiemnelson.com
What makes a successful drummer?
JN: A willingness to practice and put what the music needs first, not their ego.
What’s the hardest part about teaching drums?
SB: Seeing someone really struggle is for sure the hardest part. You have to continue to be encouraging. This instrument cannot be learned in a night, and it is important to let students know that, and it is okay.
CH: Thinking of the different analogies (often physical experiences – like “dribble a basketball, paint the wall”) to help explain how the body part should be moving, and with what tension/angle/force.
JN: Students who don’t practice are tough to teach because they don’t progress.
What successes have your students gone on to?
SB: The most recent was a student that wanted to get into Berklee College of Music. I had prepped him for his audition, and he got accepted!
CH: Joining/forming bands, learning songs, impressing bandmates with the new beats/fills they have learned, and recording/touring with those
bands.
JN: All of my students have gone on to join bands, done well in their school bands / etc.
What would you do if you weren’t teaching drums?
SB: I would continue to play myself, and probably find another outlet to help people
CH: I’d be on tour with my band, Mortals, a lot more (Day-job permitting). Or maybe I’d try to open a bakery/cafe in New Orleans.
JN: Right now I’m not sure but I was a music journalist at one point, I might go back to that.
For more information on where to kick-start your career as a rock n roll drummer, check out these sites (note: not all are related to our fearless femmes, just some extra info for interested parties)
Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls and Ladies Rock Camp
The Collective (Drum School)
Bang! The Drum School
Hi-
Thanks for mentioning BANG! in your article. I just wanted to mention that although BANG doesn’t have any female teachers (yet…we are about to hire another teacher, so the jury is out on that one…), we do teach a significant number of female students. In fact, I believe that our current roster of students is about 60/40 female/male. Female drummers are on the rise, and many of them study at BANG. By the way, if you Google “drum lessons brooklyn” guess what comes up first in the organic search results?