30 Minute Lesson Plan
1. Sharing Time (2-3 min) - Talk for a couple of minutes before beginning each lesson. Conversation between student and teacher is essential for building a relationship. See our article on Ways to Become a Great Drum Teacher

2. Warm Up (2-3min)- Take a couple of minutes to warm up with a few of the essential rudiments. The teacher should have this on hand. Using a big wall poster or a simple sheet paper of the rudiments will do fine.

3. Book Work (10-15min) - Students should bring their own book back and forth from home and lessons. As the student completes each exercise in the book the teacher will mark it off in pen. This way the student will know where to practice from during the week and the teacher will automatically know where to pick up next lesson. The book we recommend for essential drum beats is Ultimate Realistic Rock by Carmine Appice. This book is easy to read and progress through the difficulties nicely.

A secondary book that is nice to use (if the parents will fork out the money) is Drummer’s Guide to Fills by Pete Sweeney. This book complements both Ultimate Realistic Rock and the next book we will mention (Groove Essentials by Tommy Igoe). Drummer’s Guide to Fills is loaded with great fills to compliment the beats of the other books. This means that two books can be used at the same time. Have the students play a beat, add in a fill, hit a crash after the fill, and then begin the beat again while staying on tempo. This is perfect practice to prepare to play in a band one day.

A third book that is used (usually after Realistic Rock has been completed) is Groove Essentials by Tommy Igoe. This book comes with an audio CD that, contrary to normal practice, is actually essential when using this book. When teaching this book, fills from Drummer’s Guide to Fills can be added into the beat of each song. Keep in mind that