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I just talked about chaos and it pitfalls, let’s now talk about its counterpart, perfection, and what damage it can do to a budding musician. I know a lot of people who want to study an instrument. It could be drum or piano, which are the instruments I happen to teach, butRead More

Nature seems chaotic. To every semblance of logic and order, there are millions of situations that seem to be left to chance. This fish is supposed to eat that one, but just got gulped by a seal. That person rushes to her appointment, one that would decide her fate, butRead More

I have been reworking on my lessons. It has been a very long process. It has taken a lot of effort, a lot of thinking and a lot of work, but I am extremely happy with the results. More importantly, the students are very happy. Let’s take a style like Bossa-nova. If you knowRead More

I have just changed my teaching style to a much more approachable and fun way of learning the drums or the piano. I just finished writing close to 1500 new exercises with the songs that accompany them. People are describing the new approach as “very easy going”,Read More

Once you have covered the basics of drumming and you’re playing in a band, you quickly realize it’s not easy to put your own signature to a song . First, you might say, it depends on the material. Then you might follow that argument by stating that a simple rock songRead More

Survival is not for the faint of heart. We are all experiencing its very meaning at some level right now. Now, of course, I could tell you that it is important to keep hoping no matter what, to never give up. And, in some ways this blog will be about that. It is true that theRead More

When I came out of Berklee College of Music and started to teach in Chicago I wrote a lot of exercises to prepare my lessons. It was, a the time, done by hand and I had to make copies at the local copy store. It was long, cumbersome and expensive. But, like most of us back then,Read More

This has been a very trying time for the music world. I have seen Paul Simon singing against a white wall by himself with his guitar, with no accompanying musicians. I have seen the streets of my city empty from the festivals and block parties that we used to have during theRead More

You have this exercise your teacher has just given you. You understand what it’s about, the concept is clear in your head, only the body doesn’t want to do it. You hesitate, you skip, you trip, you stumble. Bad vibes all over! You can feel your shoulders tightening,Read More

We are about to deconfine. Yet, in Chicago it’s still cold and wet, the weather is welcoming 1 day, the other 10 it’s not. You look at the sky through the windows and you get a runny nose. Because we still are in the flu season.  Oh, I know. For the ones who areRead More