Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2010 brings you health, wealth and a busy calendar of drumming! There are a lot of new and exciting things happening for us here at Hudson and the TIP. Let me bring you up to speed on a few of them.
Our panel at PASIC was a great success. The panel of Tommy Igoe, Benny Greb, Dom Famularo, Donny Gruendler, John Favicchia, Joe Bergamini and I had a great time talking about teaching and using technology in the teaching room. We actually ran out of time after only two topics! We will be holding a TIP day in conjunction with the Drummer’s Collective in New York this spring (tentatively scheduled for April 11th) to expand on the concepts and devote a full day to furthering drum education in the 21st century. I’ll fill you all in as the details get finalized.
We have launched the Hudson Digital on Demand Player. You now have access to over twenty full length titles from Hudson that you can download directly to your computer. This is a huge help for teachers, especially those that teach on the road. Look for more information later in this newsletter.
Because of the global nature of our program, we decided that our TIP advisory board should incorporate some teachers from outside the United States. I am happy to announce the additions of Mike Dolbear from the U.K. and Claudio Mastracci from Italy to our (now) international TIP advisory board. It will be a pleasure getting some input from a non-U.S. standpoint on some issues our industry is facing. Check out hudsonmusic.com where we will post photos, bios and links for these fine gentlemen.
Our “Teacher Spotlight” this month is Stephane Chamberland of Montreal and Quebec City, Canada. A very busy teacher and clinician, Stephane has one of the most beautiful teaching rooms you’ll ever see.
TIP advisory board member Skip Hadden of the Berklee College of Music in Boston chimes in with some insight on how to incorporate Jimmy Branly’s book The New Method for Afro-Cuban Drumming, into your teaching. Thank you to all of the members that participated in the survey concerning this book. We learned a great deal! The Hudson Music Community is still growing steadily and we’re having some great discussion and interaction over there. Check it out at community.hudsonmusic.com. and post some videos, photos, links -whatever you feel!
Until next time, see you in the forums
Mike