With direct assistance from global drumming ambassador, Dom Famularo, the Learning Advantage program was engineered by Mapex to strengthen its ongoing commitment to music education.

Learning Advantage is supported by two core principles. First, Mapex ensures that dealers are equipped with well-maintained, high quality drum sets and hardware on which students can successfully learn. Secondly, Mapex provides an avenue for its member instructors to enhance their own education and, in turn, pass that knowledge along to their students.

Industry research reveals that students excel at a faster pace and are more likely to practice when their equipment is of high quality. Mapex Learning Advantage Dealers are offered extra incentives to keep their teaching studio gear replaced frequently and in excellent working condition.

Learning Advantage instructors have direct access to some of the greatest teaching resources in the world. Lesson plan archives, access to new teaching methods and direct contact with some of the industry’s greatest living instructors are just a few of the components that allow Learning Advantage Instructors to empower students of all ages and abilities.

With its goals firmly in place, Mapex is committed to challenging student drummers to reach their fullest potential and most importantly, have fun while doing it. The Learning Advantage Program places Mapex in a position to pave a path of learning that propels the next generation of drummers into the exciting world of modern drum set artistry.

When you are looking into percussion education, look into Learning Advantage and see the future. Mapex Learning Advantage... It’s not about the drums. It’s about the drummers

8/1/2007

Your Teaching Studio

by Dom Famularo and Stephane Chamberland

As a teacher, I realize that I will always be a student.

We are in a great revolution in drumming. Everything is growing so fast that it’s exciting and fun. The modern drummer is more versatile than before. It is common to see a top drummer performing gigs, playing studio sessions, teaching, writing articles, books and conducting clinics all in their career. Let’s focus on the teaching part! Let’s first begin with the studio.

When we think about teaching, it is a matter of knowing what to teach, where to teach and how to teach. The teaching studio is a tool that will help you get more results with your students. Let’s begin by describing how we organized our studio to maximize results and to have fun teaching in a great environment.



The Technique Section… Station 1
This area of the studio is very important. All great actions begin with good technique. This is why we created a separate station for that. We use two pads (Vic Firth and Real Feel) oriented in a way that the student can see his hands in a mirror in his front and at his side. This system is good to work in direct relation with getting the student involved in the teaching process. When the teacher corrects the student’s position or technique, they can look in the mirror and see the challenge and then correct it. There is also a video camera that records all the information. It’s crucial for the student to go back home with all the information recorded to review. The human brain will forget much after the lesson because of all the things discussed.

As a practice tool, we use the Vic Firth’s Dom’s Pad Stick. They are especially designed bigger and not heavy to stretch and strengthen the muscles. Their big round tips exaggerate the rebound.

Another tool is a metronome to assist with time keeping, it must be consistent when playing the exercises.

There are many books that we teach with in this station. It’s Your Move by Dom Famularo. This book shows how to play and apply the technique and was written inspired by drummers like Joe Morello, Buddy Rich, Sanford Moeller, George Stone, Jim Chapin, Gene Krupa and many more top players. Also, many other titles like…Stick Control and Accent and Rebounds by G. Lawrence Stone, Accents on Accent by Elliot Fine, Master Studies 1 and 2 by Joe Morello.



The Reading Section… Station 2
The reading station exposes the student into 2 different worlds. The Classical and the Rudimental style of reading. In classical music we use press rolls and we play less dynamics between accents and regular notes. In the rudimental style, we play open roll and the accents are louder. The snare drums are tuned differently also.

The rudimental snare drum is deeper in size and the head is very tight. The classical snare is more like the traditional snare drum we usually see on a modern drum set with a higher tuning sound.

We use many Vic Firth Corpmasters and classical sticks for this section. Having two different snare drums to play while standing up, will put the student in a very real situation. Again, there is a metronome here to use and many books pertaining to these styles. Having great snare drum reading abilities will improve the skill of the drummer in addition to having a good technique. These two areas will guarantee constant improvement for the student.



The Drumset Section… Station 3
Two Mapex drum sets fully equipped with Sabian Cymbals, Evans drumheads and Shure Microphones are set up for teacher and student. The student and the teacher face a TV screen projecting the student’s kit for recording.

There are also mirrors near the kit for the student to see position and movements.

The goal is to connect everything we learn with the music. All publishers DVDs are also important to show the student examples of the lesson’s subject matter.



The Fun!
The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. Have fun teaching! Be energetic in the process. Live your life as if it is your last day, teach like it’s your last lesson and be part of the evolution of drum teachers by designing the teaching studio you deserve. We hope this description of our studio will assist you in ideas for your studio.