Sheila E. Masterclass Review 2020: Is It Worth Your Try? (Honest REVIEW) [Drafted]

Masterclass By Sheila E.

Have a will to learn drums and jam them in front of your friends, your family, your colleagues? Want to learn drums for your hobby or for clearing out your bucket list? Then who better is there to teach you drums than the legendary Sheila E. This Masterclass consists of 15 videos and will guide you thoroughly through the basics of drums and music no matter what kind of music genre you want to choose and play.

For Sheila E, drums are like an extension to her body. And not only her, but she also gets this level of togetherness with drums from her father. The massively acclaimed percussionist Pete Escovedo is her father. Now you know that the genes are strong. Her early childhood went sitting aside the stage and watching her dad play in local clubs. Meanwhile, her mother worked late-shifts at a local dairy to make both ends meet.

Check our detailed MasterClass Review here.

Sheila was born to rock those drums. This Mindvalley masterclass will show how she got into jamming those drums at a mere age of only four. Most of the kids just start learning stuff, whereas she tried to play those drums as her father did. It was only a few years later when she already started to fill her father's shoes and make him proud. She played the drums for great and famous artists like Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye around the time she was 20.

Sheila E had her professional debut with Alphonso Johnson on his album "Yesterday's Dream" in mid-1976. In 1977 she became a member of The George Duke Band, and since then she appeared on numerous albums by the Duke.

Her father and Sheila also performed together in the album "Happy Together" somewhere in 1980. Legendary artist Prince spotted her, and it was in 1984 that they performed together on his album "Purple Rain". It was the time when she had already made her mark in the industry and was hosting sold-out concerts all over Europe and the US.

Sheila E obviously has so much experience and knowledge having stayed and working for this long in the industry. In this masterclass, she wants to share this knowledge and expertise of hers to numerous people who want to learn drums. No matter if you learn drums for your will or to become an accomplished and well-known drummer, Sheila will surely catch your attention, and you will enjoy the course thoroughly the same as I did.

The overview below will be based on how I felt throughout the course, the plus points and the setbacks. Although the overview is also mixed with the opinion of others, too, still it is primarily based on what I experienced.

I'll be explaining the course section wise with every section depicting a different part of a course. So without further adieu, I'll start giving out my opinion.

The first part or as we can say, the starting of the course is to find your rhythm and determine if you are fit for playing the drums or not, whether you can excel or not. It also means that you have to determine what kind of genre you want to choose and go for.

Not only drums, if you are new to any musical instrument, going through this art of the masterclass is a great option. Here Sheila will tell you and guide you in picking up a rhythm and following it. To achieve this goal, the class runs with a rhythm counter atop. This was really useful to me for picking up the rhythm and staying up with it. In addition to this, some little bubbles always keep popping up on the screen, which has some small instructions.

Sheila also taught me as well as the other users that you can make music out of literally anything. Anything literally means anything in your house from a bucket to utensils to a table. Moreover, her workbook has even more ideas to work on. There is nothing in your house which can't be used as an instrument.

Before joining this course, I thought that to start learning the drums, and I would have to buy a drum kit first, just like any other instrument. However, as Sheila shows, you don't need a drum kit initially to start learning the drums. Just a simple drum stick at first can make you eligible to start learning drums.

In this video, she explains that using a pillow and a pair of drum sticks is enough for you to start learning. Sounds weird?Actually no. This will help you to learn how to hold and use the drum sticks properly. Holding the stick properly, how to handle your wrists, how much strength to apply with your wrists is all that is included in this trick so that you can carry on with your rhythm.

Apart from this, the video will also tell you the basics related to drumming and the drum kit. Sheila will give you a brief tour around the drum kit, how to make your own drum kit and the best way to prepare or warm-up before starting your jam sessions.

This is where you will actually hit the drums and start jamming. This may feel a little difficult to you at first view, and however, if you follow Sheila and her advice correctly, this part will also go on seamlessly for you.

I made a huge mistake here by going through the video 3-4 times and not rehearsing the stuff taught. That was clearly not the way to do the course. My way really made the video literally impossible to learn a word.

The correct way, just go through what Sheila is teaching and practice it afterward. After all this, you can simply try various other methods to play that beat.

There are some basic things about beats and drums Sheila will talk about in this masterclass. These things include:

• The two and four drum beat and how to play it.
• Method to play advanced funk beats.
• How to play Latin beats such as Samba.

The video closes down with a detailed breakup of the Latin Samba beat. Her way of teaching, her knowledge and the content provided in the class is very easy to understand and follow which is the best thing I liked. I previously saw drum tutorials on YouTube, and they were hard to learn or lacked content but not this. Her way of breaking down beats is something never seen before.

For any band, drummers are one of the most crucial parts, and they are the ones who catch the attention of a true audiophile with respect to the band. Whether it be Lars Ulrich from Metallica or Rob Gardener for Guns N' Roses, drummers hold the capacity to drive the whole band. And for a rock band, the drummer is the star of the show. Hence, if you are going to be played as a drummer for any band, you have a special responsibility on your back. They sometimes have to hold the pace, ride the tempo for the complete performance, or lead the song with their solo section.

With all this responsibility on your shoulders, you cannot afford any mistake or any unethical practice during your performance. As for me, when I saw all this stuff, I was confused and scared of being this much perfect with my performance.

However, as always, Sheila also made a part to help us out through this problem to ensure our continuous and joyful drum learning experience. Sheila majorly breaks down this responsibility into multiple sections which are given below.

• What is timekeeping and how to master it.
• How to play different genres.
• How to hold and control the tempo for the band.
• How to properly handle the bridge between bass and drums.
• How to change the speed of your performance without any halt.

Being a bandleader is an even bigger responsibility than being the drummer for the band. Being a drummer only means to handle yourself and the drums. However, being the drummer means that you have to handle the entire team.

You have to look at how each and every member of the band is performing, what they are lacking, what needs to be corrected and such stuff. Being a bandleader is undoubtedly a big responsibility. However, Sheila will tell you precisely what you can do to become a bandleader, what mindset you should have and what your goals and ambitions should be. This video is not meant for you if you just want to learn the drums. I found it irrelevant for someone who just wants to go around and learn how to play the drums.

However, if your dream is to become a bandleader, then surely go for it and watch the video. The video is full of knowledge and experiences.

At the end of this masterclass, Sheila will share her experiences and some tips for the ones who want to be a musician in the future. From my point of view, this advice is more inclined towards the people who want to become a musical for professional purposes and not just for a hobby. The advice is definitely worth it for those types of people who want to grow up as professional musicians. If you are one of those persons, just head up to this section and watch it thoroughly as it is very helpful.

Moreover, Masterclass has various other masterclasses too for other music-related fields such as Film music, Electronic Music, Acoustic training and much more from the best artists of the world.

If you want to establish yourself as a musician, the masterclass is the way you should embark on.

Solos are a thing every drummer feels a bit uncomfortable about. However, when Sheila is here, there is no such thing as difficult. She covers all the basics and tips for mastering out solos very easily.

One thing I felt was that she didn't cover the advanced parts regarding solos. She just skimmed over the basics and left off. Though the workbook provides a bit more information but that's it.

Regarding the fills, no worries, she will thoroughly explain what to do with those. She will tell you everything about fills from changing the direction to joining things together and leading the band.

Sheila also explains that sometimes playing only a minimal and simple beat can also have a significant effect.

Undoubtedly the art of drumming is very demanding physically. Sheila covers this aspect too in the course, which makes the course even more incredible. She describes it well in her videos. In one of her videos regarding the warm-up she mentions that as compared to the right arm, the left arm takes a much longer time to warm up. She also elaborates on the ways she adopts in order to deal with potential problems that she comes across when putting into use specific exercises.

She digs deeper into the details in the conditioning and training video. You can also get a glimpse of her pre-show preparations in these videos. To me, it seemed to be pretty evident that her drumming has played a significant role in her incredibly maintained fitness and health.

Though she is 63 years old (born in 1957) still she manages to play and move with such great energy and vigor as she used to back in the 80s.

Congas are not my thing. They are weird to use and understand. However, Sheila explained this too and hence to write the review, I had to watch it. Once again, Sheila is a great teacher when she explains stuff like these. She made me skim through Congas very easily and happily. The stuff she told me about was:

• Conga setup and sound setup
• How to position your body while playing congas.
• Understanding the cha-cha pattern
• How to keep up with time while soloing

The workbook also provides you with some additional tunes and parts to practice up. The workbook also has various rhythms for conga and various other instruments too. However, this part is only for those you are experienced enough to read music from a piece of paper. The section is still worthy if you are not able to read music, in any case.

I never thought that I would be paying timbales during my drum training, primarily due to the fact that it is used in Latin music that just sounds boring to me. I even felt that I should leave this part.

However, I gathered some confidence and watched the video. Guess what? I was very happy to see the article. It would have been a mistake if I didn't attend it. It really opens up to various possibilities.

Sheila shares that she plays those Timbales very often till this day too. This gives her the freedom to sing and the will to move. Sheila will cover the following stuff on this topic:

• Timbales setup
• Stick grips experimentation
• How to modify or change your sound while playing timbales
• Choosing and using the right sticks

Sheila goes beyond playing the music of other people by creating her own music. It is no surprise that she loves experimenting with music and the best part is that you can get to see that in her videos as well.

For amateur people, this will prove out to be a lot more interesting rather than instructional. In my opinion, someone with more expertise in music will be able to make more out of this section as compared to ones' who are beginners.

If you are someone who really wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument, but you found it super tough to learn, then you should be giving it another thought. The drumming and percussion masterclass by Sheila E will teach you to play in no time. She does not mess up or impede you with too much detail.

She quickly begins with teaching you fundamentals and eases the topic for you, so you are good to go. The incredible part of this is you can get started even if you don't own even a single drum.

You will also find a few videos that will give you a thorough insight into her career.

I have always been a fan of Sheila E, so it was an immense pleasure to watch it more about her career into music. But if you are someone who isn't particularly a fan of Sheila's work, then you can always skip these videos.

But you will definitely miss out on a lot of golden pieces of information that will help you a lot in bringing about an improvement in your playing.

Learn To Drum Workbook In PDF Format

Though the workbook is excellent, the only flaw I came across was that it doesn't follow the structure of the course which can be a bit inconvenient as you can't quickly find something you learned in the video which you wish to go back on.

I still find it to be an incredible workbook with a plethora of practical and handy information with a lot of extra exercises to do. For starters, a map of the main world aligns with a track that is for everyone which you can be listening to and thus grow your understanding about rhythms in this incredible way. This way, you can also find tracks that will be pretty useful for the sake of practicing.

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In my opinion, it is an incredible masterclass to join where you can start enjoying and most importantly learn drumming and percussion.