Over the three visits to UHCM, I sat in on a couple of private lessons. These were more pertinent to my current employment as a music coach for vocals, keyboard, and drums. I love watching other people teach and taking notes on ideas for approaches, exercises, and repertoire. Nathan's vocal lessons were fascinating to watch. He had a similar overall approach to me, which was very affirming (as he's a much better singer than I am), and it was great to see some of the exercises he did with his students to achieve those similar goals. I tried them out on some of my own students as soon as I got home and they worked really well. He worked more on vowel sounds and reminded his students not to release unused air at the end of a line, which I hadn't thought of but makes a lot of sense to fit into the breath control training I do with mine.
I also sat in on a couple of Josh's drum lessons. He has a very different style from me which was great since I got lots and lots of new ideas from him. I've only ever learned classical or rock drums, so I hadn't had much training in other styles. While I've always played kick drum with the ball of my foot, heel in the air for maximum stomp, Josh recommended also learning to swivel from the ankle so you could be flexible in style. He also did some exercises in playing without looking to get a feel of where the instruments are, and touching the drums, picking them up, and seeing how they worked. This kinetic approach was notably easy to take on an acoustic kit, which I immediately went back to my boss at home and asked for. I currently teach solely on electric kit, which means the students miss out on the all-important tactile aspect of learning an instrument.
There were many other things I took from these lessons, but the most important thing I noticed about Josh was that he was personable, and so even his shy students were able to try out new things and learn with his encouragement. This is, perhaps, the most important thing in any teacher.
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