About
Welcome to the Musical Drumming online method
When I first set out to make a digital version of my printed book Groove, Technique and Musical Drumming, I had the idea of reworking it and making it available as an online PDF. From there, including video with the text and notation in this full online set of courses became my driving vision. Now after a lot of hard work, here it all is!
It is important to note that this does not claim to be the only way to learn the drums. As I had stated in my introduction to the print book, Groove, Technique & Musical Drumming offers you my own developed understanding of drumming, my personal teaching method and my desire to share what I’ve learned over the course of a 40+ year career playing music.
In adapting this material for these online courses and restructuring the book into the four levels you find here, I had to make some tough decisions about where to put certain elements, and how to divide the chapters into the levels. The result is a thoroughly thought-through, practical method that removes the guesswork from learning the drums.
The Musical Drumming Mission
At Musical Drumming my mission is to open the door for students of all levels and ages to the world of drums. Taking a practical, modern approach to learning the instrument, my students learn how to apply rudiments, patterns, beats and combinations of all of them to musical situations. The goal is to provide you with skeleton keys for unlocking rhythmic secrets, stylistic guides and advanced rhythmic studies. I encourage you to find your own closed doors and I will be there to help you pry them open!
John the Drummer
John McColgan is the creator and the heart of Musical Drumming. He is a professional drummer based out of Montreal, Quebec. John has been a part of the Canadian and international music scene for over forty years. During this time he has had the opportunity to play around the world with many known artists such as Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Buddy Guy, Michel Pagliaro and many more. He has worked as a session musician on over thirty albums in his career, including The McGarrigle Hour and Gogh Van Go, both Juno award winning releases. He continues to be in demand for concerts, tours and recording projects.
He is currently recording drum tracks, recording artists and bands, and teaching online and in-person drum lessons at the new JMC Studio Montreal.
John the Teacher
John has been teaching drums to students of all ages and levels since 2006 using his Groove, Technique & Musical Drumming method. All that experience has been put into the method found on the Musical Drumming website.
His many different musical experiences are applied to instructing students in the roots of contemporary music, in such styles as blues, rock, R&B, funk, jazz and even folk music. His method includes giving students time to play along with actual songs, as well as accompanying them on on the guitar or bass, giving them the opportunity to feel what it is like to play in a “real world” situation.
”The only thing that can trump John’s phenomenal skill as a musician and mind-blowing knowledge of the history and theory of drums, is his intuitive ability to teach all of it.” Read more students’ testimonials here.
Contact John if you are interested in one-on-one instruction, either online or in person (for those in Montréal).
John the Producer
In 2011 John McColgan founded JMC Studio, located in the heart of the Mile-End area of Montréal. He has since gone on to produce, record, and mix many artists, including the Folk Music Award-winning CD Count the Wicked by duo Mama’s Broke, and three CD’s by the Juno nominated folk group The Durham County Poets. He puts his years of experience as a session drummer to use on the “other side of the glass”, creating a relaxed, intimate atmosphere for musicians to create in. He has recently relocated the studio and upgraded his equipment, which includes the Universal Audio Apollo 16 interface and plug-ins, Sennheiser, Rode, Audio Technica, Shure and AKG Microphones, and Golden Age pre-amps to go along with a classic Allen and Heath anolog console.
Musical Drumming is a project of drummer, producer and teacher John McColgan of Montréal Canada. In 2021 he decided to embarque on the adventure of bringing his method for teaching drums online.
He produced a series of videos shot and edited by Montréal videographer Olivier Arseneault.
The ecommerce website and teaching application was created by the Artist Online Presence and Archiving team, in collaboration with TechPumpkin and Reimer Communications.
Putting this website together from the exercises in my book has been a monumental (accent on the mental) undertaking, that I am very proud of. I could never have done this alone and am extremely thankful to the following people:
Don Goodes (AOPA), my web developer, whose hard work, creativity, and dedication went above and beyond his job title. Working through the intricacies of this job together has been an incredible learning experience and I will be forever grateful.
Olivier Arseneault is a brilliant dancer, choreographer, artist, and videographer. His vision and creativity have helped enormously in making this website what it is, and his patience with my continual changes, alterations and nitpicking was incredibly helpful.
Khayman and Meredith, for their help in re-formatting the exercises for the site.
Bruce Reimer (Reimer Communications) and Rajwant Singh (TechPumpkin) for design and site integration.
Remy Lapointe for beta testing early on in the process.
Alan Toussaint at SoloDrum studio, who worked tirelessly shooting and building the first DVD rendition of my book back in 2009. That effort definitely set the groundwork for this project.
Last but not the least bit least, my partner Jane Edwards, whose love, support, and patience saved my sanity, and without whose loving generosity this project simply would not have happened.