LAMA Drum Clinic: Aaron Spears

LAMA is very excited to welcome DW Drums, Zildjian Cymbals and Vic Firth artist Aaron Spears (Usher) for a drum clinic Sunday November 10th, from 4pm to 6pm. The Grammy nominee has an action packed two hour clinic planned for students and alumni in attendance; limited seating is available for the public (first come, first served). Check out this performance of Aaron at Modern Drummer Fest.

Interested in attending? Everyone must RSVP to be admitted. Email info@lama.edu and we will email you a confirmation shortly thereafter. We’ll see you Sunday!

-LAMA Staff

LAMA’s #LetsTalkMusic Series Continues with Glen Ballard

Recently we were thrilled to welcome Ziggy Marley to our inaugural “Let’s Talk Music” event (hosted every quarter at LAMA). The series continues November 6 at 8pm with six-time Grammy Award Winner Glen Ballard, the songwriter, lyricist and record producer probably best known for co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (winner of Grammy Awards for “Best Rock Album” and “Album of the Year”). He was also involved in the recording and writing of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad, co-writing songs including “Man in the Mirror” and “Hand in My Pocket” and is the founder of Java Records.

Students, alumni and associates are invited tomorrow night to LAMA’s Performance Hall for the special evening, where Native Wayne Jobson will join us and interview Glen about his work and the state of the music industry. The event is open to the public — however, limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. All those who want to attend must RSVP by registering at this link. Can’t wait to see everyone tomorrow night — so get ready… #LetsTalkMusic!

-LAMA Staff

Ralph Humphrey’s Drum Clinic Tour in Germany

If you’ve never seen a drum clinic with LAMA’s honorable Drum Department Chair Ralph Humphrey, it’s a real treat for the mind and ears! Ask any of our drum students about the studio great and former Zappa drummer and you’ll see why. He’s currently touring Germany including Drumweek in Berlin for a variety of drum clinics through August 8th! Remaining dates and locations include:

• August 5th – Beathouse, Cologne, GERMANY

• August 6th – Kulturzentrum Schlachhof, Kassel, GERMANY 

• August 7th – Hamburg School of Music, Hamburg, GERMANY 

• August 8th – Music College Hannover, Hannover, GERMANY

Ralph, mid-drum clinic, at Musikhaus Schoenau – July 24th

Hope you’re having a good tour Ralph – can’t wait to have you back at LAMA!

-LAMA Staff

Get Your Summer Music Learning On!

Warm weather, trips to the beach, hiking outdoors… While summer is a the time for all those things, it’s a great opportunity to polish your musical chops. Prestigious music schools and colleges often offer summer music programs and camps that are open to musicians of all ages and skill levels. Music schools also have more advanced programs for experienced musicians. For the beginner it can be a great way to mingle with music royalty — while at the same time, you’ll get a taste of what day to day life is like at a music college. For the experienced student, a Summer music program can keep you fresh! Nothing would be worse than forgetting what you learned because of too much fun in the sun!

At LA Music Academy’s Summer Program, students write an original song, play in Ensemble Workshops, record, see their instructors performing daily, and much more. As with all programs at the Academy, the small, friendly environment and personal attention combined with daily playing/singing gives the student the most focused style-specific musical training possible in one week. LAMA is currently taking admission submissions now so what are you waiting for? Sign up here .

Guitarists and bassists must possess basic tablature reading skills. Placement evaluations will be held after orientation on the first day. Most students are teens and adults, but children as young as 9 are welcome.

Look for the info about summer music camps on music college websites, like LA Music Academy’s Third Annual Drummers Reality Camp. You may remember the DRC camp from the first two years, which featured some of the top drummers in the world. Taking place June 27th-30th, 2012 #DRC is brought to you by Drum Channel, Guitar Center, and LA Music Academy College of Music. Here you’ll have a chance to hang with and learn from the best drummers on the planet! The 2012 lineup includes Neil Peart, Doane Perry, Jim Keltner, Gil Sharone, Marco Minneman, Ralph Humphrey, Joe Porcaro, Tony Inzalaco, Gary Ferguson, and Uli Frost!

Just because admission requirements for the camp are open to more people doesn’t mean experienced musicians shouldn’t take part as well. In fact some of LAMA’s best students will be sitting front row – who wouldn’t want to hear awesome stories and insight from Rush’s Neil Peart?! For more info on DRC visit the official website. We’ll see you in June!

SO! Don’t fall prey to the summer slack off that some musicians do. You don’t have to ditch the beach and relaxation, but keep sharp and sign up for a summer music experience of some kind!

-LAMA Staff

Upcoming Music Events at LA Music Academy

If you are reading this and STILL haven’t liked LAMA on Facebook, stop what you are doing right now and go here and click “Like”. Why? If you aren’t on our Facebook, then you aren’t alerted to all the amazing events taking place on campus. The upcoming months at LAMA are filled with lots of great music events exclusively for our students — so be sure to add them to your calendar, head out and gain some insight in becoming a better musician. Besides, it’s nice to enjoy some great gigs between all the hard work, right? So, this post highlights some of the events coming up at LA Music Academy (and non-students should scroll down for info on the school’s open house, Summer Music Program and 2nd Annual Drummer’s Reality Camp):

Thursday, May 5th, 7:30pm – Rickey Minor Lecture

Rickey Minor is the Emmy-nominated music director of American Idol. His distinguished resume also includes the Grammy’s and the Super Bowl, and he has collaborated with major recording artists including Whitney Houston, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Ray Charles, Beyoncé Knowles, and many more. For more info please visit http://rickeyminor.com/

Wednesday, May 11th, 8:00pm – Dave Hill Band Concert

Dave Hill- Guitar, Tim McIntyre- Drums, Rand Singer- Sax, Hans Zuemuelin- Keys. To hear music, please visit: http://www.reverbnation.com/davehillband

Wednesday, May 18th, 8:00pm – Paul Zollo Band Clinic & Concert

Paul Zollo is a songwriter-singer, leader of The Zollo Group, author, photographer and music journalist guy. To hear his music please visit: http://www.myspace.com/paulzollo

Wednesday, May 25th, 8:00pm – Karen Hammack Band Concert

Karen Hammack is a well-respected pianist based in Los Angeles. Her diversity as a player has let her work with such artists as Jackson Browne, Michael McDonald, Bill Frisell, Perla Batalla, Niki Haris, Julie Christensen, Don Was, to name a few. She also stays busy with the finest jazz musicians such as Tierney Sutton, Stephanie Haynes, and Kate McGarry, Larry Koonse, Scott Colley, Jeff Clayton, Bobby Rodriguez and Wycliffe Gordon. For more info and to hear Karen’s music please visit:http://www.karenhammack.com

Prospective students will want to check out the following events:

Saturday, May 14th, 2:00pm – Open House at LA Music Academy

What can you expect at an LA Music Academy open house? A unique and up-close opportunity to learn about the school. You can interact with students and teachers and get a great feel for the campus! Below is a tentative schedule of events. For more information, click HERE.

Tuesday, Jun 21st, 9:00am – Annual Summer Music Program

Our five-day Summer Music Program promises to be the best yet! Students will: – write and record an original song – play in professional performance workshops – instructor performances and workshops – private lesson and tons more. Click HERE for more info.

Wednesday, Jun 29th, 9:00am – 2nd Annual Drummer’s Reality Camp

DrumChannel.com and Los Angeles Music Academy College of Music (LAMA) proudly present the second annual Drummer’s Reality Camp–four days of intense, drumming-centric workshops, master classes and performance ensembles. So far Alex Acuna, Ralph Humphrey, Terry Bozzio, Kenny Aronoff, Joe Porcaro and Thomas Pridgen (The Mars Volta) have confirmed and more guest drummers are to be added for the 4-day event! Click HERE for more info.

These are all going to be great events, make sure you take pictures and report back to us what you got out of them!

-LAMA Staff

New Video: Rudder Clinic

Rudder stopped by LA Music Academy earlier this year for a fantastic clinic. Featuring Keith Carlock (drums), Tim Lefebvre (bass), Henry Hey (keys) and Chris Cheek (sax), the guys played a groovin’ set. We captured footage of the concert as well as some important insight from Keith and Tim about music education. Check out the video below: