Brian began playing drums at the early age of 4 years old. From then to now, he's been blessed to have played and recorded with such artist as Carlos Santana, whom he recorded with on his Grammy winning CD intitled "Shaman". He also toured for many years with Toni Tony Tone, Ledisi, Goapele, Maxwell, Confunkshun, Too Short, and most recently toured and recorded a sound trackfor an animated film intitled "Surf's Up"with Lauryn Hill. Brian never wanted to limit himself to just one style of music, so he enjoys playing and studying jazz, latin, hip hop, world beat, soul, and gospel.
Patricia DeVea
Drum Instructor
Patty DeVea has been studying and performing dance and percussion since childhood, and began teaching percussion in high school. Patty’s drum set instruction is always individualized, and her friendly sense of humor puts students at ease. She works very attentively with each student based upon age, experience level, needs and musical goals and interests. As a role model, she loves to encourage drum set as an instrument for women and girls. Two of her primary strengths are instilling self-confidence and giving others the tools for continuing to teach themselves. She has taught students ranging in age from three to adult, and has worked extensively with children, including those with special needs and disabilities.
Patty has worked as a drum set instructor for over ten years. She has taught drums and percussion at a number of Bay Area schools, including Laney College Summer Music Camps, A.L.M.A in Orinda, Fiat Music in Pinole, and Acme Music in Oakland.
After graduating from Cornell College with a degree in child psychology, Patty moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, where she continued dance, including tap, ballet, modern, jazz, African, samba and partner styles. A classically trained percussionist, she also studied and performed Latin and Brazilian percussion before settling upon a long desired career as a professional drum set player.
Patty has studied drums with a number of renowned Bay Area teachers, and has a background in music theory and piano. In addition to performing with musical theatre and children’s theatre companies, she has been playing drums in many jazz, big band, rock, pop, funk, country western, and Cajun groups for 20 years. Lessons with Patty always include anecdotes that give a fun sense of perspective to learning music and dance.
Matt Roads
Drum, Bass, Upright Bass and Guitar Instructor
Matt comes to our school with a profound sense of what it means to be an inspiring music teacher. With years of experience teaching drums, bass, upright bass and guitar, he has much to offer for the serious student.
Matt realizes a one-size-fits-all teaching strategy would hinder the growth of a student, thus he is extremely driven to adapt each lesson to the age, needs, and interests of his students. Because of his diverse musical background, he can incorporate any style or song his student favors as a way to keep them motivated. At the same time, he encourages his students to expand their horizons by introducing new styles and genres.
While he likes to keep his lessons fun, he is also serious about working on technique and understanding the science of music so that students can carry this into other instruments or styles of music. He keeps his lessons half fun and half rudiments as a general rule and then adapts to the student. For his more experienced students, he goes a step further and teaches them how to play along with other instruments so they will have the ability to "jam" as they progress. For example, he brings in his guitar for a bass lesson, or even his bass with a drum student, and plays along with the student so he/she can learn how to play with other musicians.
Matt strives to establish trust with his students by building a personal relationship so that the student can feel comfortable and let their musical talents come out. He also maintains a healthy relationship with the entire family by keeping communication with the parents open and keeping them informed on their child's homework and progress.
He takes practicing at home very seriously and finds many creative ways to move his students to not just feel an obligation to practice, but to WANT to practice. This motivation comes from within and he has had much success drawing this out of his students. One parent's remarks are, "We never have to push our son to practice. He looks forward to it every day thanks to the encouragement from Matt..."
