Why Individual Drum Lessons Work Better Than Group Lessons

Group lessons are cheaper. That's a real advantage and I won't pretend otherwise. But cheap per session and cost-effective are not the same thing. Here's what you're actually comparing when you choose between individual and group drum instruction.

Technique Is Personal

Drumming technique — how you hold the sticks, how you sit at the kit, how your wrists, fingers and arms coordinate — is not one-size-fits-all. It depends on hand size, arm length, natural wrist movement, and existing habits. What works for the person to your left in a group lesson is not necessarily what works for you.

In a group, a teacher demonstrates once and the group applies it. Some will apply it correctly. Others will apply a version of it that looks right from a distance but is subtly wrong in a way that causes problems later — more tension in the grip, a slightly off angle on the stroke. The teacher cannot see everyone at once. The correction that would fix your specific problem doesn't happen.

In an individual lesson, every demonstration is directed at you. Every correction is yours. If your left hand is doing something your right hand isn't, we stop and address it before it becomes a habit.

Everyone Progresses at a Different Pace

In any group of four beginners, one will grasp the basic beat in ten minutes, one will need forty, and two will be somewhere in between. There is no curriculum design that serves all four of them well simultaneously.

The fast learner spends most of the lesson waiting. The slower learner feels the pressure of the group moving ahead and either rushes through material they haven't consolidated, or falls further behind. The teacher is constantly negotiating between these states rather than teaching.

An individual lesson moves at your pace. If something clicks quickly, we move forward. If something needs more time, we give it more time. Neither scenario happens at the expense of anyone else.

Immediate Correction Before Habits Form

This is the argument I find most compelling. A bad habit in drumming — an incorrect grip, a timing pattern that drifts, a stroke that relies on tension rather than rebound — is easy to correct in week one. It is significantly harder to correct in month three, and genuinely expensive in time and effort after six months.

In a group lesson, the teacher's attention is divided. Your specific error may not be noticed in the session it appears. It may be noticed the following week, after you've practised it at home five times. By then it's more ingrained than it was.

In an individual lesson, I see the error the moment it appears. We fix it before the session ends. You leave with the correct version. That's not a small difference — it compounds over time.

The Repertoire Is Yours

Group lessons follow a fixed curriculum. Everyone learns the same exercises, the same songs, the same material on the same schedule. That's a structural necessity when teaching multiple people simultaneously.

Individual lessons adapt to what you actually want to play. A 40-year-old who wants to learn John Bonham grooves and a teenager who wants to play along to pop songs are two completely different students. In a group, they'd learn the same generic curriculum. In individual lessons, both of them learn the music that motivated them to start in the first place.

Motivation sustained by genuine interest in the material produces better results than discipline applied to someone else's programme.

The Real Price Comparison

A group lesson at €20 per session sounds cheaper than an individual lesson at €60. Per session, it is. But consider what you're buying.

In a group of four, you receive roughly a quarter of the teacher's attention. In an individual lesson, you receive all of it. The effective teacher-time per euro spent is comparable — and in terms of actual progress per month, individual lessons tend to be faster, which means fewer months needed to reach the same level.

The cheaper option is not always the more economical one over a learning arc of twelve months.

Why I Only Teach One-to-One

I made the choice to teach only individual lessons early on. Not because group teaching is impossible — it's done well in some contexts — but because individual instruction is simply better suited to what I want to accomplish with each student.

My goal is not to get you through a curriculum. It's to get you to a point where you're actually playing the music you care about, with technique that works for your body, at the pace that's right for you. That goal requires your full attention, and it requires mine.

The trial lesson is 45 minutes and €10. Come alone — that's the format.