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Drum Samples - Where to get quality live drum sounds
By kevin | July 2, 2008
If you’ve ever wanted to find professional sounding drum samples - you’re not alone!
I’ve spent many hours on the internet searching to find good drum sounds. A few years ago it was almost impossible - and you’d have to buy a professional sample CD from a music store which might cost hundreds of dollars.
Thankfully these days its much easier to find quality sounds. You can easily find free drum samples at many sites, however frankly I can’t be bothered looking through free sites to save a few dollars. I’d much rather pay a few dollars and spend my time creating music, rather than going from one site to another trying to find free stuff.
I’ve just discovered a site where you can download 10,000 drum samples in CD Quality wav format for only $49.95 USD, which is excellent value if you are looking for quality drum samples.
Many of the music software packages available today, such as Sibelius and Finale allow you to create custom drum kits, meaning that if you can get quality sampled sounds - then you can simply load up the sounds and you’ll be able to make your MIDI sequences sound like real live drumming.
So check out the 10,000 drum samples today - its well worth a look!
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Topics: Drum Kit, Drumming and Technology | No Comments »
Save yourself hundreds of hours writing out drum exercisescheck out Kevins solution for teachers. It includes over 150 pages of handouts you can print as many times as you need!
Click here to check it out »
Djembe DVDs
By kevin | June 16, 2008
I’ve recently helped my friend and colleague Tim Irrgang re-release his Djembe Secrets DVD Package.
We originally sold this DVD pack for $149, including a 49 page book, where we invented a new “easy read” Djembe notational system.
These packages sold out a few months ago, and we’ve just released a brand new version - we’ve saved money by providing the book on CD-ROM - this way you can access it on your computer and only print out the pages that you are working on one at a time!
It still contains ALL the materials that were included in the book - just in a digital format, so that it is lighter and easier to get to you.
Best of all, you can still watch the DVDs on your TV - and the indexing system means you can find the chapter you are looking for in an instant.
For a limited time we are even including the shipping - so make sure you head on over to www.djembesecrets.com to take advantage of this offer
This package would also make a brilliant gift for anyone who is a Djembe player or enthusiast!
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Topics: Announcements, Djembe | No Comments »
Music Practice - Getting your students to do the magic amount
By kevin | May 26, 2008
Just a quick post today to let you know about a great article on My colleauge Jim McCarthy’s Drum Clinic Blog.
Jim has done a great post on The Science of Practicing a Musical Instrument - How much and how often, and has worked out the amount that you need to do to get into the subconcious area of the brain.
This is a great topic for discussion - and of interest to all music teachers, wether you teach percussion or any other instrument.
One of my favourite topics is inspiring and motivating students to practice, and this idea of scientifically demonstrating to students that their retention and improvement will exponentially improve with consistent practice is a great one!
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Topics: Drum Set, Drum Technique, Music Education, Percussion | No Comments »
Make it Fun for your school ensemble - Do it with JUNK!check out the low or almost no cost solution for having a percussion ensemble in your school
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Software Metronome
By kevin | May 12, 2008
Some options for you if you are lookin for a software metronome for your computer.
When I was at university I bought my first metronome - It was a simple little “credit card” size beeping thing that did a fairly decent job of keeping me in time. I then upgraded to a Boss “Dr Beat” - Which I still have and use today.. It cost me around $250 at the time, and I think they still cost around that sort of price.
Nowadays, you can get software metronomes, which will do exactly the same job.. and you can get them basically for FREE.
I’ve tried a few different ones.
Firstly, if you just want a simple clicker - and don’t need any advanced features you can visit the online one at http://www.metronomeonline.com its a free tool that I tell all my students about, because you dont need to install anything, it works just from this webpage. you can’t get simpler than that!
If you’re looking for something a little more advanced, you can try the Tempo Perfect metronome from NCH software. It is free, but like so many “free” software applications that you get online they are bundled with a bunch of other things that you don’t need… and loads of “nag screens” that encourage you to upgrade to other products.
Another Product which I highly recommend is the Ultimate Metronome - This costs $19.95 USD - but you don’t get any “shareware” nagging, and it has a fantastic feature which I love - the ability to automatically increase the speed after a given number of seconds.
For example you can set it to a slow speed to practice a rudiment or exercise, and then gradually increase it every minute, until its at a point that you can no longer play.
What an awesome tool for practicing Rudiments! Not even my $250 Dr Beat has a feature like this!
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Topics: Drum Technique, Percussion Fundamentals, Rudimental Drumming | 1 Comment »
My New Blog - Helping Musicians with Marketing
By kevin | May 9, 2008
Did you notice that this page moved a few months back?
I origionally had it on my own name website www.kevintuck.com, but I decided to move it to percussioneducationonline.com, as this more reflects its topic of percussion education.
I’ve been recently putting together a new page at www.kevintuck.com to indulge one of my other passions - helping Musicians with marketing, specifically marketing themselves on the internet.
Therefore I’ve called this page Music, Marketing, Publishing and the Internet - and it aims to help Musicians, Authors and anyone in a creative field with the basics on Marketing themselves.
Marketing is something that I’ve had to learn a lot about - I came out of University as a musician with absolutely NO idea about how to market myself! I tried to market a few bands and promote a few shows, and found it pretty tough going to start with!
If you are prepared to learn you pretty quickly work out some strategy and some skills that will help - but there is no end to the learning…
“the more you learn, the more you earn..” and that is so true of anything in life, wether it be playing the drums, teaching percussion, playing in a band or trying to sell a CD that you’ve created!
So visit kevintuck.com, and click the subscribe button to have the feed delivered directly to your computer, so every Tuesday and Friday you can have a little marketing insight that might help you to make more money!
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Topics: Internet Resources | No Comments »
Percussion Education Minute May 2008 - Motivating Students to practice Rudiments
By kevin | May 7, 2008
 “Motivating Students with Technique and Rudiments”
« Click here to see previous editions of The Percussion Education Minute |
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Topics: Drum Kit, Drum Set, Drum Technique, Percussion Education Minute | 3 Comments »
New composition for percussion in 2008
By kevin | May 5, 2008
I’ve decided to do something a bit different, and out of the ordinary this month at ktpercussion.com
I’m offering just three schools worldwide the opportunity to work with me virtually to create a brand new work for percussion.
In January I offered a special package deal when I agreed to do a short commissioned work as part of the package. This has turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I expected, as I’ve been able to communicate with Teachers in the schools about what they need and create something special just for them.
Due to the nature of the package offer it was only a short piece, and fairly limited in its scope. Some of these pieces will be released on the website later this year.
What I’ve decided to do now is take this a little further and offer my services as a “virtual composer in residence” to work with the schools to create a brand new work for percussion.
I obviously can’t travel to the school (unless it happens to be local to where I am in Australia), but I can gather information about the type of work you’d like and discuss with you what you’d like to achieve for the school, and then create something brand new and unique to your school.
I’m even happy to create a work for Concert Band or School Orchestra, but remembering that my skills and focus is on percussion, so the work would have to feature percussion in some way.
Just imagine the benefits for your school:
- You’ll be able to advertise a “world premiere” in your school showcase concert
- Your students will have a memorable opportunity of playing in a premiere performance
- Your school will have lifetime exposure through the credit on the published score
- You’ll have new and different repertoire from any other school
I am only offering to do this for three schools. It may take a week, it may take a month, or it might take all year for this offer to be taken up, but one thing I do know is that I won’t be able to offer it again at such a low price!
Click here for details on this offer »
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Topics: Announcements, Percussion, Percussion in Schools | No Comments »
What is the difference between a Marimba and a Xylophone?
By kevin | May 2, 2008
This is part of the percussion fundamentals series of Articles on the Percussion Education Blog.
One of the most often mis-understood differences is the difference between a Marimba and a Xylophone. This article aims to clarify those differences, and also point out the similarities between the two.
The Marimba and the Xylophone both have wooden bars. The word Xylophone comes from the greek “xylos” meaning wood. Therefore there can be no such thing as a “metal xylophone” - any metal bar instrument is either a Glockenspiel, Vibraphone or Metallophone.
The main practical difference between a Marimba and a xylophone is one of range.
The xylophone is generally a much higher pitched instrument, and is sounds one octave higher than its written pitch, therefore it can have a very bright and high sound.
The Xylophone
The Marimba is written at sounding pitch, and has much lower notes than the Xylophone. The lowest note on a xylohone is normally “middle C” (sounding pitch), while the largest five octave Marimbas can go two octaves below Middle C.
The Marimba
The xylophone is also generally played with much harder mallets than the marimba, often made of very hard rubber or even wood or plastic. The Marimba is usually played with mallets that are wound with soft yarn, and this allows it to have a very mellow rolled sound.
It might look like the marimba has more “tubes” under the notes, but the xylophone has them as well - they are just smaller. The Tubes are called “resonators”, and their function is to amplify the sound. The lower the note, the larger the resonating tube needs to be, hence why the marimba needs to have larger tubes under the notes.
You can learn more about the Marimba and Xylophone by checking out my longer article on Mallet Percussion instruments
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Topics: Mallet Percussion, Marimba, Music Education, Percussion Fundamentals | No Comments »
Rock Band - Is the game educationally useful?
By kevin | April 30, 2008
Have you seen the latest craze going around?
Its these computer games which simulate playing musical instruments, and you have to play the music as it scrolls down the screen. You get awarded points if you hit the correct drum at the right time - and like any game it is of course highly addictive and great fun!i
I’ve been aware of these kind of games for quite a few years - I first discovered an acade game quite a few years back where it had an electric drum kit, and the music would scroll down the screen. I thought at the time that if they released that sort of game for playstation it would go really well.
Well, these games are now available for most of the major game consoles - Ps3, XBox360 and the like.
The major one is called “Rock Band” and you get a guitar controller, drum kit and microphone in the full package.
I’m not a huge fan of game consoles - so I dont own any of them - and thats why I havn’t had the opportunity to test out the latest stuff.
I’ve read lots of reviews of Rock Band saying that the drums are a little bit weak and “dont stand up to the punishment”… Well.. if you take a look at it you’ll easily see why!
Its a plastic drum kit with a few sensors built in - its hardly a real musical instrument! It must be pretty difficult to build a plastic drum kit which would stand up to being hit really hard many many times!
What my question is.. have people found the Rock Band drums to be actually useful in a real situation?
In the past I might have bought the thing and tried it out - at least so I could understand how it works for students who might be playing with it.
Anyway, if youre interested in checking it out - you can click on the link below to have a look at it (and order it if you wish) from Musicians Friend.
Check out the Rock Band Game Bundle »
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Topics: Classroom Percussion, Drum Kit, Drum Set, Music Education, Percussion in Schools, general music | 4 Comments »
Websites for music education
By kevin | April 28, 2008
What makes a good website for music education?
I created my first website in 1998 - when the internet was really new!
Back then all you needed was a few links and maybe one or two articles and you got listed in search engines pretty quickly.
My question today is - what really makes a website cool for music education?
What is it that teachers and parents and students want from a website?
What sort of products and services do they need, or are they looking for?
As the internet develops its more and more important to find what you need - right now.
It used to be fun, looking through pages and pages of search results to find out information on a topic.. but now people tend to search much less - they might look at the first page of search results, and thats about it!
I’m always out there looking for new websites for music education that can be posted on this blog - so if you do have a website that is related to music education, particularly percussion, then please let me know and we can exchange blogroll links.
I also highly recommend you get involved with the campaign to get 100 blogs in music education by the end of 2008 - Its great fun to get involved and do some blogging about interesting topics!
So leave a comment and let me know!
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Topics: Music Education, Percussion | 1 Comment »