Jake Grimsley

MUED 271 Private Peer Lesson

Reflection:

My lesson went well, and revealed many tendencies in my teaching that I had no idea I

possessed until I was forced to actually confront them. For my lesson, I was teaching my

colleague, who also happens to be a cellist, named Kyle Mendez. Kyle, other than watching

other percussionists and drummers play, had never really held a pair of drumsticks. Because of

this, I started from the very beginning in my lesson, showing him the different parts of a snare

drum and a snare drum stand. I then showed him how to take apart this stand, and asked him to

put it together after I had finished. I believe this was important to learn early on, as it’s

genuinely the first step in practicing every day. Next, I had him pick up the pair of drumsticks

how ever he thought was the right way, and corrected him past there. This was very interesting,

and there were benefits and drawbacks to it. One drawback, is that it takes a small risk of

making a student feel not as smart due to the fact you are asking them specifically to make

mistakes. In a private lesson though, I think it’s important to develop an environment in which

you are comfortable making mistakes and asking questions, so I don’t regret this in the long

run. Next, I showed Kyle myself how to hold a drumstick, explaining the concept of a fulcrum

and working on different exercises with rebound for the rest of the lesson. This worked out well,

although there are always things that could’ve happened better, and which I could improve upon

next time. It’s incredibly hard in a first lesson on an instrument, especially with a completely

new instrument, to not spend a great deal of the lesson explaining certain concepts rather than

playing, but if I could go back, I would have Kyle play a lot more and talk a lot less.