Drum & Rhythm Classes

Forty years of drumming has taught me that underneath every tradition I've trained in — Indian, African, or Afro-Cuban — there's a layer the lineages don't quite name. A grammar. The human capacities for rhythm, listening, and entrainment that show up wherever people drum together. The grammar itself is already yours.

That's what I teach. Across every class — kids, beginners, individual students, a circle finding a beat together — the approach is the same.

Whether it's a child working with attention, an adult sitting down at a drum for the first time, or a circle of beginners, I work with who's actually in the room — not who I expected and not who the lesson plan was written for.

You'll play before I tell you what you're doing. The body learns rhythm through doing, not through being lectured at. Once something has happened in your hands, naming it lands as recognition rather than instruction.

Most music teaching promises virtuosity at the end of a long road. I'm interested in what works in the next ten minutes. A hand that lands cleanly. A pulse you can keep without thinking. A rhythm shared with one other person.

A teacher's job is to become unnecessary. I want you playing on your own — at home, in a circle, with your kids, in a quiet moment by yourself — long after our work together ends.

Rhythmic Awakening - Drum and Rhythm Basics

A three-hour beginner workshop — what I used to call Rhythmic Awakening. No prior experience needed and drums are provided. We start from the rhythm already in your body and build from there: how to make a clean sound, how to hold a pulse, how to listen and play at the same time. By the end of the afternoon, you've made music with strangers and walked away knowing rhythm is something you can actually do.

Forty years of drumming has taught me that rhythm doesn't belong to anyone. It runs underneath every culture that ever made music — every drum, every dance, every heartbeat in a room. I trained formally in North Indian tabla, West African djembe and dunun, and Afro-Cuban percussion, and still play in each. But the longer I teach, the more I notice something the lineages don't quite name: there's a layer beneath all of them. A grammar. The universal human capacities for rhythm, listening, and entrainment that show up wherever people drum together. Each tradition is poetry written on top of that grammar. The grammar itself is already yours.

That's what I teach. Across every class — kids, beginners, individual students, a circle finding a beat together — the approach is the same.

It goes with the person, not the curriculum. Whether it's a child working with attention, an adult sitting down at a drum for the first time, or a circle of beginners, I work with who's actually in the room — not who I expected and not who the lesson plan was written for.

Experience comes first, explanation second. You'll play before I tell you what you're doing. The body learns rhythm through doing, not through being lectured at. Once something has happened in your hands, naming it lands as recognition rather than instruction.

Small reliable results, not sometimes-dramatic ones. Most music teaching promises virtuosity at the end of a long road. I'm interested in what works in the next ten minutes. A hand that lands cleanly. A pulse you can keep without thinking. A rhythm shared with one other person. These are the foundations everything else is built on, and they're available immediately.

Independence is the goal. A teacher's job is to become unnecessary. I want you playing on your own — at home, in a circle, with your kids, in a quiet moment by yourself — long after our work together ends.

A three-hour beginner workshop — what I used to call Rhythmic Awakening. No prior experience needed and drums are provided. We start from the rhythm already in your body and build from there: how to make a clean sound, how to hold a pulse, how to listen and play at the same time. By the end of the afternoon, you've made music with strangers and walked away knowing rhythm is something you can actually do.