5 Reasons Drumeo Is Not a Replacement for Your Drum Teacher

TL;DR — Drumeo is an excellent platform. It does not compete with you. It competes with a beginner student’s desire to progress as cheaply as possible. What you do as a teacher is something Drumeo fundamentally cannot do, and once you understand that, your conversation with hesitant students changes.

Start by being honest

Drumeo is an incredibly good product. For $19 per month you get access to thousands of hours of video lessons from teachers we all looked up to as young drummers. Larnell Lewis, Eric Moore, Aquiles Priester. People used to travel across Europe for two hours with these musicians. Now it is $19 per month.

If I start with “Drumeo is rubbish,” I lose credibility immediately. So let us start with what Drumeo actually does:

• World-class teachers delivering high-level material, edited, produced, with good camera angles
• Available 24/7, at your own pace, in your own time
• $19 per month, roughly a fifth of what you charge for one lesson
• A community of thousands of other drummers worldwide
• Equipment reviews, gear explanations, drum-cam features you cannot offer in your studio

If I were 17 with a pair of drumsticks and not much money, I would use Drumeo. That is not a betrayal. That is common sense.

But that is not the same as saying Drumeo takes over your work. Here are five things Drumeo fundamentally cannot do, and which are exactly why the students who stay with you stay with you.

1. Drumeo cannot see what you are doing wrong

This is the fundamental limitation. Drumeo delivers content. One direction only.

Say a 13-year-old student is trying a 16th-note ostinato on the hi-hat. He watches the video. He tries to copy it. He thinks he is doing it right. What he cannot see: his left shoulder is tensing up, his wrist is collapsing inward instead of driving from the elbow, his pedal technique is uneven and the ostinato does not sound round.

Drumeo will never tell him that. Drumeo does not even know he is playing.

You see it. Once. Two minutes. You put your hand on his shoulder, “relax,” you tap his elbow, “from here,” you count slowly along. Ten minutes later he plays it differently. Differently forever.

That is called a feedback loop. Drumeo delivers input. You deliver correction. Beginners do not know they need correction until they get it. And then they cannot do without it.

2. Drumeo does not know where your student stands

Drumeo’s curriculum is pre-packaged. One size fits most. A 14-year-old metal fan and a 45-year-old father who just started follow the same “Drum Basics” course.

For some people that works. For most it does not. People learn at their own pace, with their own tastes, their own blocks. You know your 14-year-old metal fan will be bored senseless by “Hot Cross Buns on the snare,” but that he flies forward the moment you give him “Master of Puppets” to practise with a sticking he cannot yet do. Drumeo cannot plan that. You can.

A lesson plan adapted to this student, this week, this particular block is not a luxury. It is the reason a teacher is a teacher and not a YouTube channel.

3. Drumeo holds nobody accountable

This is probably the biggest one. Drumeo does not set homework.

It does not check in. It does not track whether you practised this week. It does not send you a message saying “hey, you cancelled Tuesday’s lesson, shall we do Friday instead?” It does not notice you have not logged in for three weeks.

What do you do? You know who did not come this week. You know whose rudiments they still are not practising. You ask about it in the next lesson. Not to nag, but because a student who does not practise and gets no counterbalance will drop out within three months.

Accountability is the quiet force behind private lessons. It is also exactly what Drumeo does not deliver and cannot deliver because it is not a person who knows you.

4. Drumeo is not a relationship

This sounds vague but it is the most important point.

You know Lieke has her secondary school exams next month. You know Tim’s father died last year and that drum lessons for Tim are simply one hour a week where he does not have to think about that. You know which songs Bram needs to play for the school band. You know who is moving soon and will probably have to stop lessons. You know who just played their first solo at an open stage and how nervous they were.

Drumeo knows nothing about Lieke, Tim or Bram. Drumeo delivers content about snare rolls.

People learn from people. A student chooses you not just for your skill (though they hope it is there) but for the fact that you see them. Weekly. Personally.

If your students feel you do not see them, because between lessons you are only sending WhatsApp PDFs, they feel the distance. And then Drumeo suddenly starts looking attractive, not because it is better, but because the distance was already becoming noticeable.

5. Drumeo is not a music school

Drumeo is a platform. A real music school is a place.

At a music school there are other students. People who are also just starting, who are also frustrated after their third week. People who are a bit further along and who you look up to. There are open stages, recitals, jam sessions, moments when you play for something other than your tablet.

Drumeo has a forum. A music school has a room. Two different worlds.

Many teachers do not think of themselves as “a music school” because they do not have a dedicated space. But if you have 25 students, you have a music school. You just need to build the structure around it: a newsletter, a play afternoon once a quarter, an annual “Stefan’s drummers on stage” event. That is not administrative hassle. That is your uniqueness compared to Drumeo.

So what do you do with this?

First: stop competing on price. $19 versus €100 per month is not a fight you win.

Second: stop competing on content volume. Drumeo has thousands of hours. You have one hour per week per student. Not a fight either.

Third: compete on what only you can do: feedback, personal adaptation, accountability, relationship, being a school.

And then remove the friction. Because here is the real problem: almost every teacher is so busy sending material via WhatsApp and loose PDFs and YouTube links that they barely get to those five things they are better at. The teacher rushes between lessons, forgets a birthday, misses the signal that a student is about to quit.

A lesson platform like Musicdott removes the admin friction so you have more room for the work only you can do. One place per student, 19 block types in the lesson, a substitutable lesson plan for when you are ill. No more WhatsApp. No more loose YouTube links. More attention for the student sitting in front of you.

When Drumeo actually is a good supplement

In honesty: I often recommend Drumeo to my own students.

Yes, really. For extra practice material, for inspiration, for a drum-cam perspective on a tune we are working through together. We do the structural lesson together. Drumeo is then a useful addition between lessons.

It only becomes a problem when the student uses Drumeo instead of you. And that only happens when you are not making it clear what you offer on top of Drumeo.

Three questions for yourself

1. What five things do you know about your top 3 students that Drumeo cannot know?
2. When did your student last receive a genuine technical correction on something they had not noticed themselves?
3. Do your students ask you to resend their lesson material? (If yes: are you going to do something about it this month?)

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Try Musicdott — First month free. You set up your first student within 10 minutes. See the three plans or start right now.

Questions? Email mail@musicdott.app or send a WhatsApp.

— Stefan, drum teacher and maker of Musicdott