TEACHING

My first memories of music come from the house of one of my grandfathers, Regino, in Caracas. A Cuban musician from Havana, he had moved there sometime in the 1940s, drawn, I think, by a city full of big bands, parties and artistic life. His house was full of instruments: a piano, an organ, batá drums, congas, bongos and, somewhere in a back room, a Yamaha drum kit. That was in the early 1980s. Eventually the kit was sold, and those afternoons became something you file away in your memory while life goes on.

Years later, at secondary school, a music teacher appeared out of nowhere to run a one-semester drum workshop. His name was Luis Mota, a cheerful, enthusiastic man. The school had never had a music department before, and it never had one again. All the cool rockers from the older years signed up immediately. I didn’t. I told my best friend I had no business being there. “Don’t be a coward,” he said. He is still my best friend.

So I asked my mother for a pair of 2B sticks and went. There were six of us, and one thing was missing: drums. We spent half the time playing a basic backbeat on our legs. Eventually Luis, a bass player himself, built us practice pads out of wooden boards, and even an improvised pedal. It was a mess, but it worked. We learned the names of the parts of the kit, how to count to four, and how to write down what we played.

At the end of the school year, we had to play a show in the auditorium of the Instituto Nacional de Nutrición, in front of the whole school and our parents. Three drummers sharing the songs, with three months of practice on our legs and on wood behind us. On the day, there it was on stage: a real drum kit, a Yamaha again. We played it for the first time in front of a full hall. It was far from perfect, but it was magic, and that day I fell in love with the instrument and with the stage.

After the workshop, I learned the rest by ear, alone in my room, repeating parts of records until I could play them. My great hero was the drummer of a band whose first album I learned from start to finish, until I found out, years later, that every track had been played by a drum machine. So in a way, my real teacher was a drum machine. It taught me the thing I still value most: listening.

I have often thought about that workshop since I gave my first lessons, around 2000. Luis had almost nothing to work with, and still he gave us what mattered: the basics, a reason to practise, and a stage to aim for.

Driven by rhythm. For the song.

I teach the drums as a musical instrument, not as a collection of exercises. Technique matters, but it has a purpose: more control, more choices and more freedom to express yourself through music. Every student arrives with a different background and a different idea of what they want to play. I start by understanding where you are, then we see what needs work and move forward with a clear direction.

Foundations, made musical.

We work on the essentials: time, coordination, sound, dynamics, technique, reading and independence. But they don’t stay on a practice pad. We bring them to the kit, into grooves, fills and songs, until they’re there when you need them, without having to think about every movement.

A clear path, at your pace.

I organise learning in three broad stages, beginner, intermediate and advanced, with smaller milestones along the way. We establish what you can already do and decide what comes next, and a personal practice plan shows you what to practise and why. The pace depends on you, not on a fixed timetable.

Listen, not just play.

Good drumming means steady time, knowing the role of the drums in a song, and knowing when to play, when to simplify and when to leave space. Mistakes are part of learning. What matters is keeping the music moving.

I teach beginners through advanced players, of different ages and musical tastes. The aim isn’t simply to play more. It’s to understand more, listen better and become a more independent musician.

Lessons in practice.

Lessons take place in a dedicated, private room at my home, between Antwerp and Mechelen, in person for now. I teach in Dutch, with plenty of material in English, the language most of the best drum books and drummers speak, and Spanish whenever it helps. I teach on both an acoustic and an electronic kit; students usually play the electronic one, so nobody has to hold back on volume.

Lessons are one-to-one: just the student, the kit and me, without an audience, so we can focus completely. Before the first lesson, anyone is welcome to meet me and see the room, whether that’s the student, a parent or a partner.

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