Cam did very well with the practice pad warm up, playing up and down the subdivision ladder at 120 bpm by himself, and then made good progress on the 40 bar reading exercise. He's able to play just about every phrase/rhythm on the page in isolation, but still struggles to string the whole thing together. We discussed techniques for reading ahead and identifying rhythmic "cells," and made improvements where we could. Cam did very well working on Paradise City today. The song at first seems simple but has several tricky parts that Cam wasn't expecting. We still have more to work on, but he was able to get through the whole song well enough and did a commendable job attempting the more difficult sections.

Cam did very well today. After a quick warm up he was able to play up and down the ladder of basic subdivisions at 100 bpm showing commendable accuracy and the ability to adjust back to tempo without losing his sticking. He was then able to take paradiddles through the ladder at 100 bpm. He struggled to play 16th note paradiddles cleanly at that tempo but was still able to perform them. He then made solid progress on the 40 bar reading exercise showing a definite improvement in the recognition of broken 16th note phrases. To celebrate a job well done we played badminton for the last 10 minutes of class.

Cam struggled at first with the 16th note warm up but ultimately made good progress and showed technical improvement even at higher tempos. Cam seems particularly interested in playing with drum-less tracks. He enjoys coming up with his own parts and identifying and responding to the various rhythmic themes within the tracks. He does very well playing by ear and responding musically,

Cam did a great job with the drum-less play along and seemed to enjoy the process of crafting his own drum part to fit within the song. He did a great job following the rise and fall of the energy and picked up on quite a few subtleties within the track and responded to them musically. Seek and Destroy is a song that Cam is already somewhat familiar with so he was able to pick up the basic groove fairly quickly. However, it is a bit faster than most songs we've looked at thus far which gave us a chance to talk about some technique and work on a speed/endurance exercise that Cam seemed to enjoy.

Cam had some trouble with the reading challenge, but with some encouragement and a quick review of the subdivisions he was able to make good progress. Cam had some extra difficulty focusing today and was resisting the challenge of American Idiot, but despite this we were still able to have some good conversations about hand and wrist technique and the importance of staying relaxed when playing fast. He made some good progress, but it seems that he has a hard time sticking with something he finds difficult, opting instead to focus on the music and songs that come more naturally to him. At the end of class we took a few minutes to listen to a drumless play-along track and Cam did very well assessing the groove and finding his place within the song. He was unsure and a bit nervous at first, but after making an attempt he gained some confidence and seemed to very much enjoy playing along to the track.

*actual date 3/7* Chris did an excellent job recalling the 16th note reading exercises as well as the 16th notes around the kit exercise. He shared with me that he's been practicing staying relaxed and controlling his dynamics while playing and the improvement was clear even from one day to the next. The 16th notes around the kit exercise seems to have really helped him maintain control over his playing while playing fills and other fast sections of the songs we're working on. At the end of the class we had a fun role reversal moment where Chris wanted to show me one of his uncles songs and teach me how to play it. He did a great job explaining the various aspects of the song to me and demonstrated a clear understanding of every section of the song.

*actual date 3/7* Cam did very well recalling the reading concepts covered yesterday and was able to decipher the new rhythms very quickly on his own. Cam has made excellent progress on Welcome to the Jungle and can now play the entire song, including the percussion breakdown, quite well. There are still a couple of sections that need a bit of refinement, but overall he's done very well working through the various sections of this song. American Idiot provides a brand new challenge for Cam: playing his classic rock beat faster than ever before. He struggled to keep up with the tempo while maintaining the correct pattern, but this presented us with a great opportunity to discuss technique and a way to show Cam how working on "boring," stuff like hand technique can allow you to play really fun things.

*actual date 3/6* While Chris initially struggled with some reading concepts he's shown excellent improvement and was able to decipher these 16th note rhythms almost entirely on his own after a brief explanation. The two Rush songs he's been working on have been a great challenge and he's doing a very good job progressing through them. They've presented an excellent opportunity to talk about technique and the importance of staying relaxed while playing difficult parts. Toward the end of class we practiced an exercise using 16th notes around the kit to improve coordination and speed while maintaining clarity and precision.

*actual date 3/6* Cam did very well reading these new 16th note figures. Over time he seems to have grown more fond of these reading exercises and it's clear that they are reinforcing his understanding of rhythm and subdivisions. He's now recognizing subdivisions within the songs we're learning and his rhythm recognition skills have also improved significantly.

Sub for Civics class - did not have a lesson plan, so we played drums.