Yamaha Drum Encounters

Study using the world-famous Yamaha Method, utilising decades of education experience to get the most out of your music lessons from the very first lesson!

Every Drum Encounters book is packed with course material which take you all the way through from Grade 1 to Grade 8! Each book is huge value for money, covering more than any one grade:

 

Drum Encounters 1 - Grades 1 to 3

Drum Encounters 2 - Grades 4 & 5

Drum Encounters 3 - Grades 6 to 8

The course is designed to be a linear progression from day one, where we explore the fundamentals and what role drumming plays in a song. As we progress through each chapter, we add more ideas and techniques to the accompanying songs so that there is always a fun and meaningful path of progression. From a very early stage, the course develops a student's creativity and has a focus on composition, allowing the exploration of a growing musical vocabulary.
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Each book includes a CD with backing tracks for all of the songs and appropriate exercises, so the student can play along and be a part of the music through every step of the course. This helps to reinforce not just the performance element, but also the the understanding of notation, music theory and general musicianship that the student develops throughout the course.

Yamaha's philosophy is that music is a language, and this is reflected in the way that the course is taught. We didn't learn to speak by having a book put in our lap when we were young, so why should we learn music in that way? We learn our native tongue by repetition and imitation, and this is the way that we believe music should be taught. This is reflected through every step of the course and within the teaching techniques used by every Yamaha tutor so that every students is given the opportunity to communicate and express themselves through their chosen instrument. 
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The Yamaha grade 1-8 syllabus is accredited by RSL Awards (Rockschool), and when followed to Grade 8 this course creates very technically able and musically literate drummers with a firm grasp of all of the skills that make a working musician. Grades 6-8 are worth up to 30 UCAS points, and when put in perspective a Grade 8 carries as much weight as an A-Level when applying to university!