What sets Drumeo apart from all the other recorded options is their weekly live Q&A sessions and interactive forums. This means that you can access the recorded lessons and sequential curriculum whenever you want, but if you hit snags or need personalized encouragement, you have teachers and a community to turn to. In our opinion, this makes for a really compelling offer, especially if you value both the flexibility of pre-recorded lessons and the interactivity of live assistance. The whole thing goes for about $29 per month without a commitment, but you can save by pre-paying for a full year. The interface is really intuitive, and seems really modern, too. This can be a mixed bag—if you’d prefer a different teacher, you won’t have the option to change here. But the value is really hard to argue with. For one flat price of $29.99 per month, you’ll get access to all the levels offered: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. This means you’ll be able to work through his full course set, developing your skills as far as you want. Plus, there are weekly live lessons that will later become available as archived lessons. Each of these live sessions, if you’re able to attend when they’re happening, will end with a live Q&A to answer questions and address any issues. This isn’t quite the same as getting one-on-one attention from a teacher, but it’s a pretty good middle ground. What’s more, is that Mike also offers in-person drum camps at his headquarters in Northern California throughout the year for an additional fee. This means you have the option to get a really well-rounded drum education, from pre-recorded lessons, to online Q&As, all the way to in-person boot camps. The drawback here is that you’re limited to the teachers on the platform, and in the case of drums, there are only a dozen teachers available. This isn’t super surprising, considering most of the tutors on the platform specialize in teaching languages rather than music. But searching “drums” in the home page search bar brings up some lesson teachers to choose from. The search result page lists the teachers along with info like price point, rating, and the number of active students. This allows you to tailor the experience based on the price you want to pay. What’s nice here, is that you aren’t necessarily locked into a monthly subscription, and you can try as many lessons as you want, at a price you’re comfortable with. This customization does come at the cost of having a ton of preset lessons to choose from, and you are limited in terms of instructors, particularly in the drum category. But this choose-your-own-terms structure is really great for those getting started on online lessons. You start your Lessonface journey by searching available teachers, rather than signing up for a monthly trial. We like this because it allows you to customize your lesson experience based on the specific teacher you want. This doesn’t just mean finding the right drum teacher, but it means finding the right teacher who will show you the style of drums you want. You can filter results by general drum expertise, but you can also drill down to specifics like Hand Drums or Steel Drums. Overall, we found the experience of finding specific teachers really intuitive, even if the interface of the site is a bit clunky. Once you land on a teacher you’re interested in, you can go even further on their page which provides a really high level of detail, showing you their bio, ratings, pricing, and availability. This level of transparency is refreshing because it means you don’t need to lock yourself into a monthly plan, and you can start with the teacher you want, rather than just a general service. While similar services like Preply offer limited online tutors, Takelessons seems to have a lot of private instructors. Similar to the other directory services, there is no direct price range available here—you’ll have to choose a teacher based on their preferred pricing. That’s not all bad, considering you can save a lot of money by going with a really affordable teacher. The interface isn’t quite as intuitive as some of the others we’ve seen, but what we really like is how easy it is to toggle between online teachers and local teachers via the map interface. If you live in an area where there are in-person drum teachers available, you’ll be able to find them, but if you prefer online lessons you’ll see them here, too. Once you select your lesson teacher, you’ll be taken to their page to read their bio, their reviews, and more detailed info about their pricing. It’s all really transparent, and we like how much information is available, even before creating an account. And as stated, it’s really nice to have the online/offline flexibility. It’s extra handy if you’re learning world percussion and can play outdoors, but still want to record a video on your mobile phone. Then, you send that video to your instructor, and then he/she will get back to you with video feedback about your performance. This allows for personal, one-on-one feedback on your schedule. But what’s extra-cool here is that ArtistWorks will then take that video interaction and add it to the library, so other players can learn from the exchange. This means that the library of learning resources is literally always growing. The drum options, from a curriculum standpoint, aren’t quite as robust as the guitar options as there are only two main categories: Drums and World Percussion. But because of that ever-growing database we mentioned, you should have plenty of more lesson options as the community grows. Pricing is $35 per month for three months, with better prices locked in with more months’ commitment. It’s not the most affordable, but it is a really unique option that might be best for those who can’t commit to weekly lessons. That’s not only because of the quality of teachers and the breadth of lesson offerings, but it’s also because the system is so easy to use. Their UX is really intuitive, and with the premium subscription, you’ll also get access to a private Facebook group. This works sort of like a Q&A forum, and allows for you to ask questions, touch base on any technical issues, and stay up to date on what the community is up to and what new lessons are coming down the pipe. It is on the simpler side, and there isn’t direct access to the instructors, but if value and ease of use are high on your list, you should consider 180 Drums. Our writers spent 10 hours researching the most popular online drum lessons on the market. Before making their final recommendations, they considered 15 different online drum lessons overall, screened options from 15 different brands and manufacturers, read over 50 user reviews (both positive and negative), and tested 1 of the online drum lessons themselves. All of this research adds up to recommendations you can trust.
