Jonathan M  
Instruments: Drums
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Rock, Funk, Bossa Nova, Soul, Avant-garde

Alongside my carrier as a profession musican and composer, I've also had extensive experience as an educator. I began teaching in 2009 while I was studying Jazz at UCSD. In 2011-2013 I was a teaching assistant at UC Irvine in 2011-2013 for the subjects of Music Appreciation, Fundamentals, History of Jazz, and Music of The Beatles - of which I lectured, graded, and tutored. Post graduation, I became the music director for the 2016-2017 program for the Coast Unified School District. There I taught band, theory, performance, and music appreciation for all grade levels k-12. When I in grade school, learning music gave me a piece of mind and confidence that is all too hard to come by at a young age. Music helped me be a better person and stay out of trouble. That value of music that affected me at an early age, spurred the desire to teach music to people of all ages and backgrounds.

I separate my methods of teaching into 6 different areas - all of which can be adapted to any skill level. 1) reading and music literacy. Focus on music literacy not only helps my students read music more seamlessly but it also reinforces technique and comprehensive development. Main music literature focused on is George Lewis Stone "Stick Control," Louis Bellson "Modern Reading Text in 4/4," Ted Reed's "Progressive Steps to Syncopation," and for more advance students the rhythm concepts of Mark Dresser and Ed Harkins. I also compose my own rhythmic exercises for my students. 2) sticking techniques, rudiments, paradiddles, posture, etc. This is of primary importance - without the write posture, sticking, or techniques your world of playing the drums are going to be a lot more challenging - and without it, you’ll look plain goofy. 3) Improvisation - Improvisation is also extremely important because you can only be a good improviser if you have a strong musical vocabulary. Being a competent improviser will reinforce ones musical vocabulary and performance practice 4) Ear training/Dictation - ear training helps contextualize where we stand in the musical world. listening to others and being able to decipher what they are doing helps us be that much better at what we do as performers. Learning how to dictate, or notate, listen or perform what we hear is one of the best ways we can become familiar with not only writing notes but also reading them and performing them. 5) Focused drum kit performance - this is our chance to put what we learn into practice and really develop our language around the drum kit. 6) Independence. I focus a great deal on independence, i.e. being able to have each limb independent of the other. Why is this so important? Drumming is all about coordination and sending and receiving messages from the brain. The more independence you practice the more often you're not going to make a mistake when your limbs are doing different patterns. In short, independence creates more fluidity across the kit.