Instruction

Rick has over 25 years of teaching experience, working with children and adults, from beginners to advanced students in individual or group settings, personalizing an individual program for each student’s level, goals and desires to ensure positive results.

A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, Rick has studied with Gary Chaffee, John Ramsay and Ed Saindon.

Teaching topics include and are not limited to the development of hands and foot technique, drum set independence, coordination, reading, rudimental snare drum development, grooves and fills, playing along to music, timing, sound quality, improvisation and how to practice properly. Rick teaches a variety of styles including; rock, funk, jazz, R&B, latin. To help teach his methods, Rick wrote an instructional book called Building a Drumset Vocabulary available for sale through this website.

An important part of the lessons is playing along to music. That’s also what’s the most fun. Rick gets the student to start playing along with simple songs as soon as possible. Students are encouraged to come with their own music wishes or preferences.

Rick’s drum studio includes two drum sets, one for the teacher and one for the student to play alone or together, practice pads for hand technique, a digital recording system to record the lesson for home observation and or to record the student playing along to tracks minus drums for self reflection and analysis.