Hello, Modern Drummer readers! I would like to thank MD for the great opportunity to do this blog. As this is my first blog, I would like to briefly introduce myself.

I was born in Naples in 1966, and I live in Italy. I started studying music when I was ten years old. I have had many important teachers in my life, but the most important was the maestro Enrico Lucchini, one of the most appreciated teachers in the world. In the ’70s he taught in the Dante Agostini Drum School and the Kenny Clarke School of Paris. He was a revolutionary teacher for the drum’s didactic in Italy, irreplaceable today too.

Since 1976 I have played with nearly a hundred Italian and international bands, covering more than forty different musical styles, both as a professional and an amateur player. I approach each experience, no matter whether big or small, with a natural spirit of study and research.

The work that most characterizes me is my original solo performance “Tribute to Beethoven,” in which I play the drums over a recording of the 9th Symphony. It lasts about eighty minutes and has encountered a great success since 1987. It is a different way of playing classical music: My intention is to play “inside” the symphony with the right notes, melodies, and groove/interpretation and not to dominate the music, as is normally done. Advertisement

In 2001 it came out on the CD Tribute to Beethoven—Drum in the Symphony No. 9, available on iTunes. Thanks again to MD for reviewing it in the April 2004 issue. For their positive reviews I would also like to thank Percussive Notes (official magazine of the Percussive Arts Society) and dozens of magazines and international radio and television stations.

Since 1992 I have been teaching with good results my own “Rhythm Psychology,” which I conceived as a way to communicate my didactic-musical research on the interpretation of rhythmic divisions. In 2011 it evolved into a methodology called What Is the Groove? (And How to Reach It), which is not only for drummers.

These concepts are included, from the first lesson on, in the classes that I have been independently teaching since 1986 on drums, as well as my classes Solfege and Music Theory, and Music Listening While Performing, both not only for drummers. I am also a drum, band, and instruments coach. Advertisement

My drum course, as my other courses, is also useful to give a professional training towards the first-class international schools.

Along with other method books, I use my own Complete Drums Method. This book is the result of many years of experimentation/elaboration, and it’s available in many Web stores in English and in Italian. A pdf version containing 100 pages of text and 160 pages of exercises is also available.

 

Thanks for reading, and feel free to contact me with any questions at massimoaiello.com.