Have you ever wanted to learn to play the drums? Are you intimidated by the prospect of finding and vetting a new drum teacher? Or, maybe you are an experienced drummer that wants to refresh some skills or learn to play in a new genre. If any of these scenarios applies to you, then you need to check out Drumeo’s online drum lessons.
What is Drumeo?
Drumeo is an online drum teaching platform. Instead of paying for one in-person lesson a week with a local teacher, you subscribe to Drumeo’s online service, called Drumeo Edge, which gives you access to a wide variety of teachers and lessons—more on that below. In this review we look at Drumeo Edge in-depth to let you know whether or not it is worth your hard-earned money.
How It Works
First, purchase one of the Drumeo Edge membership plans described below. Second, begin learning.
Drumeo is a great program because with your membership comes complete access to their lesson library full of hundreds of videos with more added live daily. Drumeo breaks their videos into courses. Each course is then further divided into different shorter lessons that cover just one aspect of the technique under discussion. With your membership you receive unlimited access to this video library as well as all the downloadable content from each lesson.
There are almost one hundred teachers on the site that come from wide and diverse backgrounds. Thus, you can choose the teacher, genre, drumming style, and experience level that will work best for you on any particular day.
What It Costs
Drumeo provides many ways to experience their drum lessons. The most popular—and cheapest—option is to buy a year’s subscription to the service. This plan will cost you $197. Your purchase of the one-year membership also comes with founder’s Jared Falk’s Beginner-to-Advanced Curriculum called “Successful Drumming (online edition), Mike Michalkow’s Encyclopedia of Drum Lessons called “Drumming System 2.0 (online edition), and a P4 practice pad for free. Drumeo has put together this package deal in order to celebrate their 6-year anniversary.
If you don’t want to commit to the one-year plan right off-the-bat, then you can choose to purchase their monthly membership at $29.00 per month.
No matter what purchase option you choose, you will save money, since any private teacher will charge more per one weekly lesson than you will be paying Drumeo for all of their lessons.
Other Options
Drumeo also offers certain of their teacher’s curriculums—twelve at the moment—for sale in the Drum shop. In most cases you can choose the online or hard copy editions of these lesson plans. Because of Drumeo’s 6-year anniversary celebration, all lessons are currently 60% off. Take advantage of these deals quickly, for they may not be around long.
90-Day Guarantee
Finally, Drumeo believes in 100% customer satisfaction. So, they provide a 90-day money back guarantee with all of their lessons and membership options. If you are not satisfied with your purchase in your first 90 days, then call the company and you will receive a complete refund.
Cool Aspects
Still not convinced? Well, here a few of the neatest aspects of Drumeo’s service that all members receive.
High Quality Teachers
Unlike your local neighborhood drum teacher, Drumeo provides the highest quality—and occasionally famous—teachers on their site. You can take lessons from drumming luminaries such as Kenny Aronoff (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Peter Erskine (Weather Report), Thomas Prodgen (mars Volta), Jim Riley (Rascal Flatts), Tony Royster Jr. (Jay-Z), and Larnell Lewis (Snarky Puppy). These are just a few of the many teachers from the highest echelons of the drumming world that Drumeo employs.
Most of them do not teach anywhere but on Drumeo, so you would not be able to study privately with them. Therefore, Drumeo is your best bet to receive a world-class drumming education.
Lots of Genres and Proficiency Levels
Drumeo’s large lesson library contains a wide variety of musical styles. In the “real” world, it would be almost impossible to find a teacher proficient in more than one drumming genre, i.e. a rock drummer will likely not know how to play jazz drums. But, with Drumeo, you can choose to learn any drumming style you wish, from the experts in that field.
Community
Many private teachers have studios full of students, but it would be unlikely that you would ever have much interaction with them. Instead, on Drumeo you have access to blog, forum, and chat features that allow you 24/7 contact with your fellow student. By all reports, the Drumeo community is extremely supportive and congenial to all of its members.
Is It Worth It?
In short, yes. Drumeo is a great online platform for anyone wanting to learn and improve their drum playing skills. Drumeo has provided a living, breathing community that is constantly growing and changing. For the price, you cannot beat the many features, experience-level of the teachers, access to a high-quality content, and consistently supportive community. Finding just one of these aspects in a live studio would be extremely hard. That Drumeo provides all of this for a very reasonable monthly or yearly fee, makes it an opportunity not to be passed up.
Here’s some of pros and cons you should consider when thinking about joining Drumeo Edge:
Pros
Almost 100 teachers from a variety of backgrounds and styles.
Wide range of drumming styles offered; from pop to rock to jazz to gospel.
Students of any level can learn new information, skills, and techniques.
Costs are much less than they would be for an in-person private drum instructor.
Cons
No immediate feedback. You can chat with the teachers during live lessons or send in a video of yourself playing for a critique, but the teachers cannot correct your technique in real-time.
Some live lessons can go on for an hour or more. Such a huge time commitment may not be feasible for some people.
You have to have a computer and an Internet connection.