The Maestro Online
Learn to Play Drum Kit
From International Players and Exceptional Educators
100% 5 Star Reviews
Your Purchase Options
Subscribe to Monthly Membership
Exclusive access to all masterclasses and courses.
Tremendous value, very popular, convenient for all.
Much cheaper than weekly lessons!
£29.99 (£15.00 for newsletter subscribers)
Buy Individual Masterclasses
Purchase individual masterclasses.
Great for presents or one-off purchases.
Learn at your own pace, again and again.
£19.99 per masterclass
1-1 Online Drum Kit Lessons
Online from our experts.
Learn both technique and creativity simultaneously from musicians at the top of their career.
from £25.00 GBP per 30 mins
£45.00 for 1 hour
Piano Practice Toolkit: Grade 5
These practice toolkits support The Maestro Online Popular Piano Exams (also supporting other exam boards too), or simply a keen amateur at home who wants to just sit and improvise. These are the piano toolkits that will maximise your piano fun, develop core skills and help you connect theory with sound!
The Maestro Online Grade 5 Piano Practice Toolkits
Rhythm backing tracks to help support your fluency, improvise in time.
Interactive step-by-step scale/key tracks for the relevant keys for each grade, helping you start with just one note per key, then 2 notes, “add it and nail it” without feeling overwhelmed.
Multi-style scale/key backing tracks in Pop, Soft Rock, Reggae and Funk to support your concept of key and improvisation.
Song style backing tracks in the style of a selection of songs on each grade syllabus to help develop your improvisation.
EXCLUSIVE Celebrity Improvisation lessons, tips, tracks, teaching techniques from World-Class Masterclass Tutors, including pianists who played on some of the original pop songs, interesting anecdotes, professional piano player insights, and session musician perspectives.
Rhythm Backing Tracks
Support your fluency, improvise in time in 3/4 and 4/4 with tracks created by our Masterclass Tutors Marcus Brown (Madonna and more) and Nicky Brown (legendary producer & BBC).
Tracks:
- 4/4 Rock
- 3/4 Time
- New York Loop
- Slow Funky Loop
- Slow Drive Loop
- Pop Loop
- Detroit Loop
- Ballad Loop
Bonus: Establishing 4 beats per bar Masterclass Lesson by Nicky Brown.
Scale & Key Fun
Scales are great for understanding keys and improvisation. We do them in a really fun way!
At Grade 5, blues embellishments are encouraged and so we now have blues/country backing track added. The mixolydian combined with blues scales work well over this and these scales form the basis to many blues, rock & country guitar solos.
This pack also includes a step-by-step phrase structure Blues Scale tutorial backing track from the Richard Michael BEM course.
Interactive step-by-step tracks in C, F, G, D, A E, Bb, Eb, and Ab Majors helping you start with just one note per key, then 2 notes, “add it and nail it” without feeling overwhelmed.
Bonus Masterclass – Add it and Nail It method by Mick Donnelly (Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Robbie Williams & more)
Multi-style backing tracks in C, F, G, D, A, E, Bb, Eb and Ab Majors (plus Mixolydian, and relative natural minors and harmonic minor in Am, Dm, Em, Bm, F#m, Gm, Cm, C#m and Fm) in different styles to support your concept of key and improvisation. There are also tracks with the bass removed so that you can develop your LH and RH separately:
- Pop (Pentatonic/Major)
- Soft Rock (Mixolydian)
- Reggae (harmonic minor)
- Funk (natural minor)
- Blues/Country (mixolydian/blues)
Pentatonic and Major are very common in pop songs.
Natural minor is also particular common in guitar solos.
Blues scale is used to create inflexions in many blues and gospel solos.
Multi-style backing tracks in C, F, and G Majors (plus Mixolydian) in different styles to support your concept of key and improvisation. There are also tracks with the bass removed so that you can develop your LH and RH separately:
- Pop (Pentatonic/Major)
- Soft Rock (Mixolydian)
- Pentatonic and Major are very common in pop songs.
- Mixolydian is really common in rock guitar solos.
Song Style Backing Tracks
These are inspired by songs from the Grade 5 syllabus to help develop your improvisation.
- Sweet Child O’ Mine
- Living On a Prayer
- Great Balls of Fire
- Final Countdown
- Cake by the Ocean
Exclusive Pro Tips
EXCLUSIVE Improvisation lessons, tips, tracks, teaching techniques from World-Class Masterclass Tutors, including pianists who played on some of the original pop songs, interesting anecdotes, professional piano player insights, and session musician perspectives. Grade 5 includes:
- Move to the Groove (Richard Michael BEM)
- 1 Note Improv
- 1 Chord Improv
- Establishing 4/4 time (Nicky Brown, Legendary Producer)
- Beats 1 & 3 (Nicky Brown)
- The 3 Note Groove (Richard Michael BEM)
- What Goes Up Must Go Down (Richard Michael BEM)
- Shift the Lick (Richard Michael BEM)
- Same Progression, Different Grooves (Nicky Brown)
- Rhythm as Your Hook (Nicky Brown)
- “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” short improv tutorial tracks on combining different layers of a band to form piano textures from the Richard Michael BEM piano masterclasses
- “Another Brick” short improv tutorial tracks on combining different layers of a band to form piano textures from the Richard Michael BEM piano masterclasses
- “American Boy” short improv tutorial tracks on combining different layers of a band to form piano textures from the Richard Michael BEM piano masterclasses
- “Say a Little Prayer” improv (Nicky Brown)
- “Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore” piano masterclass demo (Marcus Brown, who has played keys & created piano tracks for James Morrison)
- “Gimme Gimme” piano masterclass demo (Marcus Brown)
- “Hung Up” piano masterclass (Marcus Brown, Madonna’s Keyboard Player including illustration on how this song is based on Gimme Gimme by Abba)
£29.99 one off payment
Click to Buy £29.99 One-Off Payment
£29.99 per month including over £2000 of courses and masterclasses
Click to Subscribe to All Toolkits, Courses & Masterclasses
(over £2000 of content included)
Our Drum Kit Courses & Masterclasses
1. Drum Beat Basics: Beginner drums
2. Bass Drum Fun: Develop unique spins
3. Beginning Solo Drums: Be YOU, play along and learn how to create easy solo drum patterns
4. Fills on Drums & Initial pro techniques
5. Pro Drum Beat Pattern play-alongs
Our Drum Courses in Detail
THE MAESTRO ONLINE
Drum Kit Masterclasses
- Drum Basic Beats
- Fills on Drums and Pro Techniques
- Multi-Style Drum Beat Pattern Play-Alongs
Magesh Magesh is a legendary drummer.
Magesh has taught music for over 25 years. He worked as a session musician for Rhianna, Lionel Richie, Ricky Martin, Chris Brown, Nelly Furtado, The Pussycat Dolls, Kimbra and Vernon Reid from Living colour.
He has given clinics on music education for the Roland corporation, Tama drums, Vic Firth sticks and Sabian cymbals. In the year 2000 he was named one of the ‘Top 20 Millennium drummers’ by Drum scene magazine. Magesh is currently teaching students online from all over the world, including for The Maestro Online.
Drum Beat Basics
This course will cover the following areas:
- Introduction
- Holding the Sticks
- Single Stroke Roll
- Double Stroke Roll
- Basic Beat
- Basic Beat Singing
- Basic Beat with 2 Snares & Singing the Beat Part 2
- Basic Beat with Multiple Bass Drums & We Will Rock You
- Basic Beat in 4/4 Time & Billy Jean
- Quarter Note Rests
- Eighth Note Rests & Paradise City
- Using a Metronome
- Conclusion
Fills on Drums and Pro Techniques
This course will cover the following areas:
- Contents
- Playing a Groove with a Fill
- Quarter & Eighth Notes in a Fill
- Introducing 16th Notes
- 16th Note Drum Fill
- Mixed Subdivision Drum Fill
- Another Mixed Subdivision Fill
- Medium Advanced Groove: Off Beats on the Snare
- Advanced Groove: Off Beat Snare Groove in 4/4 & Hard to Handle (Otis Redding)
- 16th Beats Off-beat on the Snare
- Co-ordination Exercises
- Co-ordination Exercise in a Groove
- Eighth Note Triplets
- Sixteenth Notes on the Hi-Hat
- Swing V Straight
- The Rim Click
- The Rim Shot
- Ghost Notes
- Conclusion
Drum Beat Pattern Play-Alongs
This course will cover the following areas:
- Play Along Intro & Practising
- Rock Play Along 2
- Rock Play Along 2
- Rock Play Along 3
- Rock Play Along 4
- Funk Play Along 1
- Funk Play Along 2
- Funk Play Along 3
- Funk Play Along 4
- Triplets Intro & Triplet Play Along 1
- Triplets Play Along 2
- Triplet Play Along 3
- Triplet Play Along 4
- Shuffle Intro & Shuffle Play Along 1
- Shuffle Play Along 2
- Intro & Half-time Shuffle Play Along
- Intro & Implied Shuffle Play Along
- 16th Notes Play Along
- 16 Notes Play Along 2
- Three Funky 16th Notes Examples
- Conclusion
THE MAESTRO ONLINE
Creative Drumming Courses where You become YOU
Dr Paul Francis – Drummer Extraordinaire and Lead UK Music Educator
Paul is an experienced musician, composer, producer and leading educator in the UK with international credits. His work has included sessions, tours, radio, TV, lecture halls and so much more. The educational element of Paul’s interests particularly focuses on Higher Instrumental Popular Music Education which he terms, HIPME.
His academic posts have included
- Course Director, BMus Popular Music Performance at at Access to Music/Birmingham City University.
- Principal Drumkit and Ensemble Studies Lecturer at University of Huddersfield,UK.
- Course Leader at BIMM Institute, Manchester, UK.
