Emersons Green · Bristol
Play a Real Song in Your First Week.
Not after 6 months of exercises.
One-to-one drum lessons, 45 minutes a week, built around the songs you love.
First lesson £10. Enjoy it?
We take the £10 off your first month.
From Day One
Every Song
Between Lessons
"Brown Sugar is going great. Quickest song I've ever learnt
and I love playing it."
Does this sound familiar?
- You've been meaning to do this for years. Now you're wondering if it's too late.
- Your kid drums on everything. The table. The sofa. Their sibling.
You don't want it to be another thing they quit. - Two years of YouTube tutorials and you still can't play a song all the way through.
- You got through the grades and never once played the actual record.
There are two usual routes.
A practice pad and rudiments, with real songs promised once your single strokes are even.
Or a grade book, where the exam board picks the music.
I've done both.
Either way, real music comes last.
That's a long time to do homework for a hobby.
Most drum lessons start with exercises.
That's why most people quit.
For years I taught what I'd been taught. Coordination and technique get built away from the music, and once you've "unlocked" them the songs will follow. My students could do everything they'd practised. Then the song would start, and they couldn't just...play.
Here's the part that's not right. When that happens, nobody blames the method. They decide they haven't got the coordination, or they left it too late, or they're just not musical. I've heard all three from people who could have played the song they walked in for. Kids don't say it out loud. They just stop asking to practise.
I'm Duke. Twenty years teaching, most of them playing professionally, and years spent reading the research on how people actually learn physical skills. It points one way: you get good at what you practise. Practise drills, you get good at drills. Practise songs, you get good at songs. So I stopped teaching exercises and started teaching to songs, and people got better faster.
Drills on a practice pad don't make you a drummer. Playing a song from start to finish does.
Meet Joe
Joe was my student before he was my colleague, and he's a full-time professional drummer now. He came up the old way, exercises first, and then watched what changed when I stopped teaching that way. He teaches songs-first because he's seen the evidence from both.
He takes Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, I take Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Whichever one of us you get, you get the same method.
What you get for £175 a month
A 45-minute lesson every week, in a room built for it.
Same teacher, same slot.
A kit set up and waiting, so there's nothing to buy first.
A place in our private student group.
It runs on Discord, a free app we'll set up with you in between lessons.
Film your practice, post it, hear back within 24 hours.
No contract, no notice period.
Direct debit, the same amount every month, cancel any time.
What that gets you
You play the songs you love
You pick the songs, every week, from your first lesson.
Practice stops being something you make yourself do, which is why you'll still be playing year after year.
You learn to hear, not to read
We work from the track, not from
notation.
You start hearing what the drummer's actually doing, which is what allows you to work out songs on your own.
You improve between lessons
Post your practice and hear back within a day, so you're never stuck.
A month later you can scroll back through the thread and see how far you've come.
How it works
Book your first lesson
Pick a slot that suits you and pay your £10. Nothing starts automatically afterwards, so the only thing you're deciding is whether to try it out.
Bring a song you love
We strip it back to a version you can play today, you play it, then we add the clever bits on top. That's the first lesson, and every lesson after it.
Play your songs all the way through
Not one day, when your technique's ready. Within weeks, and then even more of them, until the people in your house have to ask you to stop.
Here's what our students think
"Parklife. I couldn't quite get all the kick and snares to line up in the right places, Duke helped me along with that, and something clicked overnight. I was able to play it a couple of days after."
Rich
Never played before. Four songs in 3 months
Seven Nation Army. Believer. Natural. Enemy.
"He got to a place where he felt like he was actually playing the drums rather than making noise."
, Seb's mum
Learning at 38 was never the problem
Right now: Arms of Sorrow (Killswitch Engage).
"I was a bit worried about learning a new instrument in my late 30s, and my ability to learn at a decent rate. I don't think this has been an issue."
Stuart
Four years in, and nobody has to nag him
This term: Monkey Wrench. My Hero. Master of Puppets.
"We've always kept practice quite low pressure, just ask him to do 10 mins each evening, but actually once he's on the drums he usually ends up playing for ages. We rarely have to remind him to practice these days."
, Theo's mum
What you can only get here
| What you get | Here | The usual |
|---|---|---|
| Songs you chose, and nothing else | ✓ | ✗ |
| Playing a song end to end in your first weeks | ✓ | ✗ |
| Feedback on your practice between lessons | ✓ | ✗ |
| Kit provided, nothing to buy first | ✓ | ✓ |
| No contract, no notice period | ✓ | ✓ |
Everywhere else, the lesson ends when you leave the room.
Here it carries on.
You play at home, post it, and hear back the next day.
Safeguarding
Enhanced DBS, both teachers
Barred list, rechecked yearly
Under-18s' videos stay private
Only their teacher sees them, never the group
No private messages, ever
All feedback happens in the group, where you can read it
Written consent first
Nothing with your child in it goes up before that
Questions people ask
The oldest person I've had start here was 72. Age isn't what slows adults down, embarrassment is. And 45 minutes with one teacher and nobody watching is about the least embarrassing way to learn anything.
Maybe they won't, which is why there's no contract and no notice period. But here's why kids usually stop. 6 months of work and no play. Your kid picks the song, they play it that week, and you'll hear it through the ceiling.
It's weekly one-to-one lessons plus feedback on your practice 7 days a week. What it's usually up against is an hour a week and nothing in between. You're not paying for a better hour. You're paying for a better week.
Everybody says this. Coordination isn't something you turn up with, it's one of the things you build. If you already had it, you wouldn't need us.
It's a free app, like a WhatsApp group with rooms in it. You'll have it working in about five minutes and we'll be right there to help you set it up. You film a bit of practice on your phone, post it in your room, and your teacher replies.
You don't need one to start, there's one here set up and ready. When you do want your own, we'll tell you what's worth the money and what isn't.
Lyde Green, BS16 7FP. You'll receive the location in your booking confirmation. Parking is easy and free, usually directly outside.
No. If you want grade certificates, or your child pushed towards exams, we're not it. If you want a drill sheet handed to you and marked every week, we're not that either. This works for people who want to play songs, and who don't mind having a go at something before they can do it properly.
If the first month isn't right, you get it back
Your first lesson tells you whether you like us. It doesn't tell you whether a month of this works for your lifestyle, your child or your family, and that's the bit you're being asked to buy.
So pay for your first month, come to your lessons, and if it still isn't right, tell us and we'll refund it. All of it.
You don't have to explain why, and we won't try to talk you round. We only ask that you actually turn up, because a month you didn't come to isn't a month you can judge us on.
We'd rather refund your money than have you sat there for 6 months wishing you'd said something.
Are you ready to play the songs you love?
What's being decided isn't the money, because you can stop any time you like.
It's whether your next year looks like this year.
Another 12 months wishing you could play the songs you hear in the car every day. Or a few months from now, sat at a drum kit, playing song, after song, after song.
Nobody has ever regretted learning to play something. Plenty of people regret the 10 years they spent meaning to.
It's £10 to find out.
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