Drums | Professional Program

For 20 months we’ll be guiding you step by step toward becoming a professional musician. You’ll improve your techniques and sight-reading skills, study all major styles and play alongside the music scene’s top professionals. No other place will teach you everything about the music industry, from basic to high level. Our instructors will share with you what turned them pro — their experience, know-how and an insider look at their path to becoming the successful musicians they are today.

Yannis Stavropoulos

Main Focus: Basics, Technique, Reading

Yannis received a scholarship to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He played live and in studio with musicians such as Mike “Jonesy“ Jones, Chris Jacob, Aydin Esen und Vasilis Tsambropoulos, Saxophonist Andy Sheppard, Jim Odgren, Lyn Dobson and Dimitri Vassilakis and Bassist Manuel Orza, Xavier Padilla, Jack Kulp, Yotis Kiourktsoglou and George Fakanas. In addition he gave workshops with George Kollias, Thomas Lang and Dom Famularo.

He’s now recording and touring with his internationally acclaimed Jazz Quartett “NUKeLEUS“ (piano: Sami Amiri, bass: Pericles Trivolis und saxophone: Antonis Ladopoulos). Yannis worked closely with Jazz maestro Craig Bailey and George Kontrafouris and taught at Modern Music School Greece. His most famous student is George Kollias.

Steve Alexander

Main Focus: Live Playing

His work with Jeff Beck Band, Duran Duran and Lenny Kravitz made Steve famous as a drummer. He’s also a composer, programmer and producer and tours the world as a clinician for Sonor und Zildjian. Steve has even developed his own drumming philosophy, which you’ll get to know in his classes.

Angela Frontera

Main focus: Latin

Angela Frontera is known to her peers in the international music as ‘the artist from São Paulo’, because it’s where she grew up and where music first entered into her life. Her birth town however is Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, where she was born in 1965. In 1993, Angela moved to Germany and became indispensable to the World-Music-Scene. She’s worked with Nina Hagen, Grace Jones, Lou Bega, Airto Moreira, Rosanna & Zélia, Edo Zanki, Emiliana Torrini und Six was Nine.

On more than one occasion, she was a guest player in the “Harald Schmidt Show Band“ as well as the “Oliver Pocher Show Band“. Currently she’s working on several projects, such as composing music to accompany the book “Café Zeitvergessen“ by Christiane Schwarze, and performins with bands like Witchcraft, Zelia Fonseca Band, SMAF.

Daniel Lunkenheimer

Main Focus: Jazz

After taking private lessons at Modern Music School, Daniel went to LA to study at the Los Angeles Music Academy in 1996 and 1997 (with Ralph Humphrey, Joe Porcaro and Mike Shapiro). After, he studied Jazz- und Popularmusik at Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim. His heart is set on Jazz, which makes him a top coach for this style.

George Kollias

Main focus: Metal Drumming

George Kollias scored second place at the DRUMMIES! Artist Award 2015 in the Extreme Metal Drummer category. Every year since 1996, readers of the renowned Drum! Magazine vote for their favourite nominees. As the fastest double-bass drummer in the world today and member of the internationally successful band NILE, George is the perfect teacher to cover the metal category. As part of the Professional Program, he’ll give you the most important tips and tricks for metal drumming.

The Professional Program Drums is divided into the following subjects:

Basics

In this class, we’ll review your basic skills and set you up with a plan to efficiently manage any gaps we discover. Even the most experienced drummers discover a bad habit or two and we use this class to fix them. We’ll also cover technical things such as maintenance and care of your instrument and accessories.

Business

Get the knowledge you need as a drummer to understand the ins and outs of the music industry. Using case studies, we’ll discuss in depth different legal and financial aspects to help our students plan their individual careers.

Education

Teaching is an important side-income for many professional musicians. Having a profound knowledge of modern teaching, and learning which concepts to use when teaching, will help you design interesting and efficient drumming lessons.

Improvisation

Almost all styles contain improvisational elements. Spontaneous soloing is one of the biggest challenges for drummer. In this class we’ll introduce you to different rhythmic approaches, strategies and practice concepts that will help you to build tension and expand your expression.

Jazz

In this class we’ll cover different genres and styles of Jazz from playing in different ensembles (trio to big band), to interpretation of standards and jazz soloing.

Latin

Considered by many as the “supreme discipline” of rhythm, dealing with Latin American styles is a unique challenge for drummers. We’ll focus on Brazilian and Afro-Cuban styles and how to play them authentically, and on Latin percussion techniques.

Live Playing

It’s in performance when your professional skills and knowledge will show most significantly. We’ll explore different performance situations such as play-a-longs, band performances with other pro musicians, and sessions and showcases.

Music Theory

Professional drummers must become increasingly proficient in music theory as well. That’s why we cover musical forms, harmonics, notations etc. in this class.

Reading

This class is all about sheet music. You’ll practice your sight-reading, notation, transcription and interpretation skills. Charts, original transcriptions and lead sheets will help solidify your music skills.

Recording

Drumming for a recording session comes with unique challenges. In this class you’ll learn about microphoning, tuning and muffling. You’ll also practice recording with and without a metronome, with overdubbing, and with band in a professional studio setting.

Rock

The requirements of professional rock drumming are often underestimated. Just think of all the sub-styles of rock music produced today — more than most other genres. In this class you’ll learn to master them all.

Styles

In most high profile jobs there’s one thing you really need to master: versatility. For drummers this means being able to master a wide variety of styles above all else. We’ll teach you the characteristics of each style and how to play them on your instrument convincingly and authentically.

Technique

Your posture matters. It enables optimal coordination and independence of your hands and fingers so you can master techniques like rudiments, ruffs, rolls and groupings. We want to equip you with a technical repertoire that enables you to pull out the appropriate style in any situation.

From MMS Student to Grammy Awards.

With the Latin Pop Band "Camila" Ulf Geist has won
the Latin Grammy in 2014

Ulf Geist started as a Modern Music School student. He attended drumming lessons at MMS from the age of 12 and when he turned 19, decided to join the PROFESSIONAL PROGRAM. He moved to Los Angeles to study drums. After winning the Musicians Institute’s prestigious Carlos Vega Drum Off contest and graduating with honors as an “outstanding student,” Ulf began filling in for big name bands both in studio and on stage. He’s played with Alex Max Band, artists such as Dariush and Kamran & Hooman, and gave concerts on all four continents. He tours the world with the Latin pop band “Camila” and even won a grammy award in 2014.

From Germany to Los Angeles

Tobias Urbanczyk graduated from the PROFESSIONAL PROGRAM DRUMS in 2011 and is now touring the US.

Inspired by his musical dad, he started playing drums when he was 8 years old and played in several pop, rock and jazz-bands growing up. After successfully finishing the Modern Music School Professional Program, he took the plunge and moved to Hollywood to study drums at the Musicians Institute and won "Outstanding Player, Drums.” Tobias played with international artist like Brooke Fraser, Cassy London and Wayne Brady. Currently he is lead drummer for indie-folk band “Miner.” and playing worldwide gigs with Sabrina Carpenter. The PROFESSIONAL PROGRAM DRUMS enabled Tobias to step into the music business.