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Sun, sun, sun! We are all baffled as to why is has been so warm recently but we are not complaining here at Planet drum!

that our Summer student performance will be taking place on the 27th and 28th of June and will include our very own teachers jam. If you would like to perform, speak to your teacher or email the office (bookings@drumad.com). Come along to the band practices to work on a song…
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This months workshops will be taking place on:

• Thursday the 7th of March - Improvisation workshop (6pm juniors, 7 pm adults)
• Thursday the 14th of March - Band workshop (6pm juniors, 7pm adults)
• Thursday the 14th of March - Percussion workshop, 8pm
• Thursday the 21st of March - Improvisation workshop (6pm juniors, 7pm adults)
• Thursday the 28th of March - Band workshop (6pm juniors, 7pm adults)
• Thursday the 28th of March - Percussion workshop, 8pm

from a new strand they’ve recently launched called ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’. It’s all about giving arts practitioners time to explore one particular area in-depth. I proposed that I would embark on a year-long project composing new music for four different sized ensembles. The outcome would be four sets of music accompanied by four separate day-long workshop sessions with the musicians, which I would record as a document. Each ensemble would be a different size to the band I’m used to composing for: my quintet, Entropi. So I decided that I would write for a duo, quartet, sextet and dectet. 

 I thought I would be doing project planning for the year, contacting musicians, booking rehearsal rooms and sitting down to compose music for one of these four ensembles. A very organised and logical approach. This is not what happened. In this blog post, I’ll outline what I’ve learnt so far in the hope that it might inspire you to think about how you approach your music-making, composing and improvising.

Up till now, my composing has been ‘on demand’ for a very specific reason. Normally it’s a gig with my band where we need an extra two tunes to have enough original material for the whole gig, or I need to write one more composition for a recording. The process has often been quite stressful and close to the wire. I’d find myself up late trying to finish a tune off for a rehearsal the next day with my band. Fear played a great part in getting the thing done and I didn’t find the process very enjoyable.

so I forced myself to find another way to go about writing music. This has been quite unexpected. A book came into my hands called ‘Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear’, by Elizabeth Gilbert, which talked about nurturing and unblocking creativity. While reading the book I realised that I was quite creatively blocked when it came to composing. You know when you are blocked when you avoid doing the thing - whatever that is, writing a novel, painting or in my case composing and then make up a load of excuses in your mind about why you can’t do it. I realised that I hadn’t really seriously addressed the practice of composition. Often when I did sit down to write, I’d have an inner critical voice saying: ‘what is this piece of rubbish?’ This is no way to get into the zone and be creative!

Improvisers compose in real time all the time. As an alto sax player who is extremely into free improvisation and jazz, I normally have no problem coming up with ideas and essentially making stuff up on the spot. This is just because I have done it a lot, so it feels comfortable for me to do so. A large part of improvising in any kind of music is interaction with the other band members, listening, reacting, developing ideas all in the moment. To be able to do that you need to be far away from the critical mind and right in the flow of ideas. I wanted to be able to recreate this feeling while composing new music.

 Elizabeth Gilbert talks finding our creativity by following what makes us curious. I realised that I wanted to do some visual art. So I proceeded to spend an hour a day doing A5 sized pieces of colourful abstract art. The rules were: do it everyday and be non-judgmental about the outcome. In other words value the process and not the result. This was hugely beneficial for me: because I am not trained in art, I had no real value judgements on my choices of colour, shape or line. I just did it every day for a month. Over the weeks, I started to notice that this art activity was having a positive effect on the way I was improvising on the saxophone. I was applying the freedom I was experiencing on the blank canvas to music. 

As musicians, we spend a lot of time learning and practicing technique. Obviously this is very important, but I feel that we can sometimes forget to engage with the side of music which is artistic. As musicians we are all creative artists, but do we always feel like that? Expressing ourselves through music is probably the reason why we all started playing in the first place. This must be something to nurture as much as achieving technical prowess on the instrument, I think.

using the same system: one hour a day and no judging what ideas come out. It is much harder to ignore the critical mind when shifting the creative process to something we HAVE trained in. But I had developed a non-judgmental muscle through doing the artwork the previous month. When starting a piece of visual art, it was very unhelpful to question ‘why did you use that colour?’ so using that same principle I trained myself to stop questioning every single choice of chord, melody note, bassline, theme and just let the music unfold - much like improvising. Over time, ideas started to flow more freely when I stopped putting so much pressure on myself. I shifted the focus away from outcome towards process. In the month of January I have composed 16 musical ‘sketches’.

My website is: deebyrnemusic.com if you are interested in what projects I’m involved with and where I might be playing next. Thanks for reading this and I hope to share some of these compositions with you in the future!


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Blog post by our Saxophone teacher, Dee Byrne.

Was it just me or did January seem to last forever? Well hopefully Planet drum can spice up your February with more workshops and exciting performances from Asaf Sirkis (Friday the 8th of February) and Paprika (Saturday the 9th of February).

​The workshops beforehand are free for all our Planet drum students!

Firstly, how good was Robert Brian's masterclass on Friday the 25th of January? A huge thank you to Rob and everyone who came down!

You might recognise him from playing on the BBC Young Jazz musician of the year 2018!

The Sirkis/Bialas International Quartet is a fresh new collaboration between Israeli UK-resident drummer/composer Asaf Sirkis and Polish vocalist/composer extraordinaire Sylwia Bialas. This band celebrates original music from both collaborators, covering a wide range of influences such as contemporary classical music, Polish folk, South Indian & Middle Eastern music. The quartet will be playing materials from their forthcoming double album 'Our New Earth' which will be released on Moonjune records later in 2019. Click here to grab your tickets.

will be performing at Planet drum on Saturday the 9th of February. Composed of a group of inspirational musicians and skilful performers, the artists behind Paprika have earned their reputation as a talented band to look out for. Paprika is the UK's leading Balkan band whose line-up consists of two accordions, guitar and percussion with regular guest members on violin and bass.  Catch our guitar teacher, Vladimir and our bass teacher, Peter in the band! Click here to grab your tickets.

Can you believe we have hit 2019 already? Where did 2018 go? I wanted to say a huge thank you and well done to everyone who performed in the Winter Performance before Christmas, everybody had a great night!

So, Planet drum is kicking off the new year with a bang, including more workshops than ever before and exciting upcoming masterclasses and gigs. We have the pleasure of announcing that UK session drummer and Grammy winner (yes, that’s right) Robert Brian will be coming into Planet drum to host a masterclass on Friday 25th of January, talking about his experiences in the studio and on the road as well as top tips that he feels all working drummers should know…You can purchase your tickets here.

​with Israeli jazz drummer, Asaf Sirkis (8th February) and Vladimir’s Balkan band, Paprika (9th February) so make sure to grab your tickets by contacting the office.

to book a slot as there is limited availability! Bookings for January workshops will be available on 2.01.2019.

• 10th January - Band workshop (6pm juniors, 7pm adults)
• 10th January - Percussion and drumkit workshop, 8 pm
• 17th January - Improvisation workshop (6pm juniors, 7pm adults)
• 24th January - Band workshop (6pm juniors, 7pm adults)
• 31st January - Percussion and drumkit workshop, 8pm

So here we are, Christmas is just around the corner and the Planet Drum family is coming together for our Winter Show on Friday 7th starting at 6 pm.

This year, for a change we’ll be kicking off with the percussion workshop performance followed by the junior performances at 6.30 pm then the adult performances at 7.30 pm.
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The final rehearsals for these will be held on:
Tuesday 4th 8 pm – Percussion Workshop
Thursday 6th 6 pm – Junior Band Workshop
Thursday 6th 7 pm – Adult Band Workshop
Thursday 20th 6 pm - Junior Improvisation Workshop
Thursday 20th 7 pm - Adult Improvisation Workshop

​Please contact the school to book your places for any of these if you haven’t already done so.

Finally I would like to say well done to everyone for the progress made this year and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Best wishes for 2019!

Newsletter by Planet drum teacher, Louis.

I've been lucky enough to watch two incredible live band performances. On paper, both these groups have a pretty standard and traditional sounding line up (keys, bass, drums), but their music is far from what most people would call traditional. The sounds and styles of the two bands are worlds apart, however, one thing they have is common is the ability to improvise and create unique pieces during their sets. ​

at Cafe Oto in Hackney. The Necks are true masters of improvisation. As far as I know, that's exclusively what they do. There are no plans, no set pieces, no agreed direction: nothing. Each piece they create is truly unique and begins when one of the members starts making sound. That sound may not necessarily be a melody or an identifiable rhythm, but what happens from that point is certainly a sonic journey. The evening consisted of two 45 minute sets which felt very different to each other.

The one similarity was a steady yet almost imperceptible increase in intensity. There was no apparent communication between any of the band members other than through the music they were making; it was as if they were operating telepathically. Toward the end of each piece, the vast amounts of space that existed earlier on were filled with sound which had become quite mesmerising. I had no idea that they'd been playing for as long as 45 minutes and when it stopped, the room fell silent for what seemed like an age before the applause began once the audience had recovered from the hypnotic effect of the performance.

​The Necks' drummer, Tony Buck, uses an array of objects in addition to his kit as part of his performance; a bowl full of bells, mini cymbals, cogs from bicycle gears, strange looking sticks, straps to name but a few items! It seems that anything can be used as a musical instrument in the hands, or under the feet, of a creative player.

from The Necks experience, I then went to see NERVE, led by legendary drummer Jojo Mayer. NERVE make electronic music but it is all played and manipulated live by the people in the band, which includes the man out front on the sound desk.

The sounds used are faithful to various electronic genres; drum and bass, house, dubstep etc, and clearly a lot of work has gone into the reproduction of those sounds using the instruments being played live on stage. With NERVE, there are obviously some parts in the pieces that have been pre -written and are probably played the same way each time the piece is performed, as Jojo Mayer was directing the other band members at points, however, the vast majority of what was being played appeared to be improvised and took shape as it went along.

The pieces were extended and allowed plenty of room for each band member to showcase their musicality. It would be easy to go on and on about how incredible and technical the drumming was but actually, the most impressive thing was just how much of the drumming was about the groove, the feel and creating space for the music to take shape and find it's own way.

​That said, there were obviously some pretty mind blowing passages where Jojo Mayer demonstrated some of his legendary technical skill and techniques. I decided not to focus on trying to watch what he was doing but to just listen closely instead and I think I enjoyed the performance more as a result. Again, just like Tony Buck, Jojo Mayer had a collection of extra items, acoustic and electronic, which he used to affect the natural sound of the drum kit and help create new sounds to fit with the various styles. ​

is an important skill to develop as a musician and playing music with others is probably the most fun, enjoyable and rewarding way to use all those other skills you've been developing and working on in your practice. Why not get yourself along to the Planet Drum improvisation workshop were you'll get to do just that!

Also, please keep your eyes open for opportunities to socialise with Planet Drum students, teachers and friends. Whenever possible, we'll be arranging group nights out to see high profile drummers and other artists perform at local venues. Earlier this year, we went to see a seriously intense Femi Kuti concert and in November we'll be getting blown away by Louis Cole one night and Moses Boyd the next!
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Blog post by Planet drum teacher, David.

to everyone who came to see our performances last month. We really appreciate your support and hope you were well entertained.

And finally, want to wish good luck to everyone taking exams this month. Stay cool out there and have a banging November!
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See you around!

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We have a handful of tickets to the following gigs at Islington Assembly Hall so contact the office to reserve your space now!
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• Louis Cole - 23rd November
• Moses Boyd - 24th November

Newsletter by Planet drum teacher, Louis.

​We all like crazy syncopated patterns, intense solos and intricate rhythms. All that noise can sound cool, but we often forget about the power of simplicity in music. Some of the greatest songs ever recorded have been done with two verses, a chorus and most of the time with a single rhythm looped for the entire duration of the song.

​The first one, is that I spent the whole summer gigging almost every day with instrumental jazz gigs with various acts, electronic rock/pop (http://www.fjokra.com) and last-minute function gigs. The differences of “vocabulary”, sound, repertoire and approach are quite challenging and very often there’s no time to prepare or rehearse the set list.

​There is always a good solution for this kind of situation, it is simplicity. Keeping the rhythmic section clear, minimal and most of all musical helps the music breath more and sound better ( and eventually get more bookings).

I’m not saying that technique and other more academic studies are not important. Indeed, every kind of music requires a specific standard knowledge; what I’m saying is: do not confuse practicing with playing when you're making music with a band. In other words, while you are playing, focus on the “now’ and do your best with the skills you have acquired up until now.
 
Of course, I like watching skilled drummers showing off brilliantly executed chops and taking inspiration from them. But don’t forget that what you really need to do is to play for the song, this is what drumming and making music is about..
 
As Miles Davis used to say “I always listen to what I can leave out”

Blog post by Planet drum teacher, Filippo. 

​I would like to say a big thank you to all who came down to the Jazz Cafe last week to see my band Afrik Bawantu. It was an absolutely amazing night and such a fun gig to play. Here’s a little clip from the first set. 

 This is where you can check out some of the teachers in action!

• Vladimir and Peter with Paprika  http://www.eastfinchleyartsfestival.org.uk/#sat6th
• Keith - The lost disc show  https://sohotheatre.com/shows/the-lost-disc/
• Filippo - 2nd October, Curveball atThe Kitty Hawk. Modern Fusion/Jazz
• Filippo - 11th October, Guido Spannocchi Trio @ Caravanserail
• Filippo - 17th October Rory More Trio @ Jazztrain night, Shoreditch
• Filippo - 22nd October, Guido Spannacchi Trio @ Brixton Market
• Filippo - Samba Ensemble @ Granary Square, Kings Cross
• Louis - 24th October Afrik Bawantu https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/afrik-bawantu-with-afla-sackey.
• Dee- 5th October Entropi http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/event/double-bill-entropi-voronoi-match-fuse-late-session/
• Katy Russell - KT Abbotshill wine bar Sat 13th Oct - http://www.abbotshillwine.co.uk/new-products-1/national-album-day-131018

​Finally for anyone who has been waiting patiently for an update on the garden. Well, I’m happy to say the tomatoes are eventually ripening at a rate just about sufficient for necessity. What a wonderful thing nature is. Muchisimas gracias! Good luck with all your endeavours. See you soon!

Newsletter by Planet drum teacher, Louis.

I’m excited to be starting a new chapter of my life, teaching trumpet at the fantastic Planet Drum school.
From walking through the doors of Planet Drum for the first time I could sense it was a place full of creativity and hard work.
Everyone I’ve met so far has been enthusiastic and passionate about their work so I’m looking forward to joining the team soon!

I’ve been playing in bands in London since I was 16 years old. This summer has been a busy time playing festivals across the UK with Afrobeat guru Dele Sosimi and the Ghanaian percussionist extraordinaire Afla Sackey to whom our very own Louis Pocock is the drummer for.

​Most recently we’ve been touring the Chai Wallahs stages at Kendal Calling, Greenman and Shambala Festival. Its truly been a wonderful experience meeting so many amazing people who make it all possible. Anyway, enough about me!

Blog post by Planet drum trumpet teacher, Henry Lawry.