Drum Lessons - New York City, NY

Many people have emailed me asking where they can find drum lessons in their home town. Given the global nature of the Internet, I'm not likely to be familiar with anyone's local area, but I can give some pointers for drum lessons in New York City, which is my local area. Some of this is also applicable if you live elsewhere.

Matt Ritter is a professional drummer who teaches in Manhattan. For more information, visit his Web site MattRitterMusic.com.

New York City has a very well known drum school known as The Drum Collective. It is located in downtown Manhattan, in the Chelsea area, and its Web site is www.TheColl.com. This school has instruction for other instruments, but it started out as a drum school.

The Collective offers drum training programs that range in duration from a few days to a year, and it also offer individual private drum lessons. As of this writing, The Collective's price for a single one-hour drum lesson is $57, with discounts for buying larger blocks of lessons. Since organized institutions are usually more expensive, this price is a good upper limit on what you should expect to pay for a drum lesson from an independent teacher. The average cost of an hour drum lesson is somewhere in the neighborhood of $40. Of course, if you go for a private lesson from someone famous, the sky is the limit.

To find more drum teachers in NY, aside from asking around, you can find listings for New York drum lessons on a Web site called CraigsList.com (the link is to the New York specific section), and on bulleting boards at local drum stores. One of the largest drum stores in New York City is the Sam Ash Percussion Store. The address for the main store is 160W 48th Street, New York, NY. (There are several Sam Ash music stores on the same street.)

If you're not from the New York area, CraigsList.com is a good resource for other cities in the United States.