Ask an Expert: Archive

Q: Private Lessons for Older Adult
I have a beginning drum student that is 55 years old. This is his first experience with learning a musical instrument and is quite excited. He is spending time practicing and is very eager to learn. What teaching differences or changes should be made in approach for the older adult beginner rather than the typical 10 - 15 year old beginner?

Answers:
HI Brian,

Having an older adult as a student can be very rewarding, both for the teacher and student. Adults are often serious, committed, and very appreciative students. As to your question, I do use a slightly different approach to adult beginners as opposed to younger students.

One of the big differences is that I am much more structured with younger students, and I try to take them through a "big picture" study of drumming. If a young student wants to play only drum set, I very much believe that they still need a strong grounding in fundamentals. I am a firm believer in getting a student sitting behind a set on the first lesson, be they young or old. It may be only for a few minutes, but it lets them have some fun, and it gets all four limbs moving early on. I then usually tell them that if they practice their snare drum reading, and stroke development as I assign, we will get some time on the drum set next week as well. If they practice, they will get behind the drums with headphones on again the next week, if not, well then we used all our time working over things that they should have practiced on the pad!

With an adult, I am less worked about them learning things that might make them a better all around player. I figure that they are an adult, and if they want to spend most of their time playing drums and learning a specific style, and less time working on chart reading, fine. All students need to spend time working on the fundamentals of motion etc, but there are areas that I give adults more leeway than younger students. They are an adult and they should have more input than a younger student. A younger student usually doesn't see the big picture, so I feel like I may need to make them study some things, and areas that they may not be as excited about as others. Adults also tend to more sensitive to lack of progress, so I also try to be very encouraging. Making them feel like they are doing well and growing is a key to keeping them motivated.

Either way, we all love music and the drums because it's exciting and fun. For both young and old, I try to keep things exciting, motivating, and fun. I hope that this helps.

Jim Rupp