Chris was visiting today which ended up being a great opportunity for Chris and Cam to play together. They had a bit of friendly competition, trading off songs and challenging each other to play various songs/grooves, but ultimately I think they both got a lot out of the experience. Watching each other and observing how the other approached a song or fill a bit differently led to some good questions and a discussion of bass drum technique that I think clarified a lot for both of them. We had a lot of fun and it sounds like Chris and Cam may get together over the summer to play some drums.

Cam has really improved his ability to move around the kit fluidly and express more complex musical ideas, but with this newfound ability comes more responsibility. He's done very well understanding and integrating the concepts of musicality/playing responsibly and intentionally, and seems to really enjoy that process of refinement. Cam can now play the entirety of Master of Puppets, but there are still a few small details that present a challenge. He did a great job adapting and incorporating some of those details into his performances today.

Cam did a great job today. We had a great continuation of our discussion about musicality and how to play with intention. He incorporated those ideas very well while playing through Espresso and delivered one of his most musical performances yet. Cam has been asking to play chess with me for a while now, so we came up with a deal that if he was able to play through all of American Idiot with no mistakes we could play chess for the last 10 minutes of class. He played through American Idiot flawlessly and we took a moment to appreciate how much progress he's made over the year before playing a quick game of chess (which Cam decidedly won) for the end of class.

Cam had a particularly great lesson today. He was very excited about seeing Metallica in concert, so in honor of that we played through every Metallica song we've covered throughout the year and even learned a new one! We then revisited American Idiot by Green Day, which is a song that I initially tried showing Cam a couple of months ago. At the time, Cam was a bit intimidated by the speed of the song and was nervous to really give it an honest try. Today, we took another stab at it and he was shocked by how easy it was! He had a hard time believing that the song hadn't somehow slowed down in the time since he last hear it. He did an excellent job following his instincts and responding musically through his first play-through, and by his second play-through he already had most of the song memorized.

Cam did an excellent job today. He demonstrated solid understanding of meter and odd time signatures during our review, and he played both Master of Puppets and Bring Me To Life very well. There are still a few aspects to each song that present a challenge, but he does a great job adapting and hitting all of the major points. The couple of sections in Bring Me To Life that we focused on last week sounded great today, and he did a great job incorporating what we had talked about.

Cam is doing an excellent job with Thunderstruck. He's adapted well to the unique challenges of the song and has begun adding his own fills and flair to his play throughs. His understanding of meter and time signatures has also improved substantially. We had a great conversation about the concepts and how we can put this knowledge into practice to assist with our playing and our ability to learn new songs. Bring Me to Life is sounding better and better and Cam's bass drum playing in particular has really improved over this past week.

Cam's playing has really improved over this past month or two. During our warm up we took some time to look back at how he used to play some of these songs and how far he's come. Afterward we listened to Consoler of the Lonely which has a very atypical drum beat. I thought it would be good timing for Cam to hear something completely different to what he's already learned and it certainly piqued his curiosity. We then briefly looked at Bring Me to Life, but Cam had to leave a few minutes early for a field trip so we didn't get far.

Cam did a great job working through Thunderstruck. It's less complicated than his last two songs (Bring Me to Life and Master of Puppets) but it does present a couple of unique challenges. He adapted very well and was able to play through the whole song quite well with only a few minor hiccups. He also did a great job remembering what we had worked on regarding odd time signatures and was able to explain to me the concepts discussed yesterday. We ended class by working on developing freedom and fluidity in his playing while maintaining an awareness of the time/meter. It was difficult at first, but he made great progress and seemed to have a lot of fun.

Cam has been doing a great job playing through the two songs in 7/8 (Whiplash and Money), so I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk a bit more about music theory and rhythm. At first he wasn't thrilled to be looking at music notation on a piece of paper, but after a quick explanation he seemed more interested. We then applied this new understanding to the kit by looking at a new song, Seven Days by Sting, that's in 5/8. Cam did very well figuring out the time signature with minimal help, and then played along quite well.