Contact Stewart
info@stewarthoffmanmusic.com
Ph: 1.416.462.9615
Latest News & Views
- Teaching and Playing Paradiddles with Lifts and LevelsMarch 2, 2022 - 12:50 pm
- Practising Two-Beat Drum FillsFebruary 3, 2022 - 6:00 pm
- Teaching Mallet Percussion in Band Class: A Carefully Planned Program + Appropriate Testing = SuccessSeptember 25, 2019 - 5:28 pm
- Playing and Teaching the Buzz RollOctober 25, 2018 - 12:11 am
3 weeks ago
I'm looking forward to teaching and coaching the percussionists at REMI Music Camp this summer. It's at Lakefield College, in the stunning Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario and promises to be a memorable and rewarding experience for adult instrumentalists. If you're interested - or know someone who might be - please have a look at the brochure.
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Roy Ernst Music Institute, LLC (REMI)
Check out my latest music and upcoming events!3 weeks ago
I'm looking forward to teaching and coaching the percussionists at REMI Music Camp this summer. It's at Lakefield College, in the stunning Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario and promises to be a memorable and rewarding experience for adult instrumentalists. If you're interested - or know someone who might be - please have a look at the brochure.
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1 month ago
Hacked again!! Please ignore friend invitations. Thanks.
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2 months ago
Hi Friends, Why anyone would want to impersonate me leaves me baffled, but please ignore any friend requests. Thanks!
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2 months ago
Hi Friends, I've just discovered that someone is impersonating me on Facebook. Frankly, why anyone would want to impersonate me leaves me baffled. Be that as it may, I've reported it - and please ignore any friend requests.
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Teaching and Playing Paradiddles with Lifts and Levels
Stewart Hoffman is the author of The Band Teacher’s Percussion Guide from Oxford University Press (Watch all the videos related to this post: Teaching Lifts and Levels; Teaching and Playing Paradiddles; and Practising Paradiddles) No matter what a drummer’s goal is – whether it’s to play in an orchestra, or a jazz, rock or marching […]
Practising Two-Beat Drum Fills
What are Drum Fills? Drum fills are short, improvised drum, or drum and cymbal patterns, most often played when moving into a different section of a tune – as when a verse leads into the chorus, to name just one example. Drum fills commonly take up anywhere from the last beat of the bar to […]
Teaching Mallet Percussion in Band Class: A Carefully Planned Program + Appropriate Testing = Success
If you’re teaching mallet percussion in high school and have never attempted to sight read music on a mallet instrument, walk over to a xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel or vibraphone right now and try it. Even pianists will be surprised at how difficult it is. With your eyes focused on the music, you can barely see […]
Playing and Teaching the Buzz Roll
A good buzz roll should sound even, seamless, and remain under control at all dynamic levels. The best drummers devote a great deal of their practise time focusing on it. In Playing and Teaching the Buzz Roll – a short video excerpt from my NYSSMA (New York State School Music Association) Winter Convention snare drum […]
Teaching Percussion Technique: 8 Essential Points for Students and Teachers to Remember
The development of good percussion technique is not often on the teacher’s or student’s mind during those first weeks or even months of classes. After all, there’s nothing easier than playing a note on a snare drum, xylophone or timpani: any beginner can hold a stick or mallet above a drum head or bar, let […]
Beyond the Method Book: How to Engage and Challenge Percussionists in Band Class
(DOWNLOAD Snare Drum Sticking Patterns here) It’s not easy to engage and challenge percussion students in school band class. Just having them play the method book snare drum part – especially during those first months of classes – won’t do it. Having them work on the snare and mallet exercises in a method book helps […]
Planning Your High School Percussion Program
Summer is winding down and if you’re a high school band teacher, you’ve likely begun to tidy your band room, organize instruments, search out new music and plan programs. But have you taken the time to focus specifically on your high school percussion program? Have you considered whether all your percussionists will be required to […]
Leonard Bernstein’s Centenary: Introducing Genius into the Classroom
I’m always disappointed to discover that my percussion students – and that includes high school music students – have so little knowledge of music beyond pop and maybe some classic rock. I was thinking of this on August 25, the date of what would have been Leonard Bernstein’s centenary. Worldwide celebrations of the event had […]
Finding a Good Drum Teacher (and Identifying Those to Avoid): 5 Points to Follow
What Should a Good Drum Teacher Teach? When parents invest in their children’s music lessons – on piano, trumpet, violin, oboe or whatever – they expect certain basics to be taught. A functional technique is one of them. They would also expect a teacher to relentlessly steer students away from bad habits that inhibit technical […]
Renee Rosnes Quartet at Jazz Bistro: Echoes of Toronto’s Jazz Past
Used to be that Toronto was known as a jazz town. Years ago there was the Town Tavern and the Colonial Tavern – clubs that regularly presented the world’s greatest jazz musicians. As a teenager I heard Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Stan Getz, Gary Burton, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines, the Modern Jazz Quartet – the […]