Prowess Music presents
The drummer sets the room.
A three week online cohort for Ghanaian church drummers who play by ear and are ready to know why it works.
Or get the free Sunday Service Groove Sheet, the eight patterns every service needs.
The plateau
You can carry a service.
You just cannot explain how.
You learned behind the kit, not in front of a teacher. Someone handed you sticks, the service started, and you worked it out in real time. That got you here, and here is further than most people ever get.
But you know where the edges are. A click in your ears throws the whole thing off. The worship leader changes the arrangement and you are watching the keyboardist to find out what happens next. You have played the same fill for two years because it is the one that always lands.
None of that is a talent problem. Nobody ever named the things you are already doing, so you could start doing them on purpose.
The kit map
Every piece, and what we do with it.
Tap a piece of the kit.
Hi-hat
Tap a piece of the kit to see what that part of the cohort covers.
What you will learn
Eight lessons.
Three weeks.
Each lesson runs twelve to fifteen minutes, and each one leaves you with something to work on before the next.
The single paradiddle, one of the patterns in lesson seven
Sitting right
Posture, grip, and why your hands are tired by the third song. Fix this first or everything after it is built on sand.
The service backbone
Highlife and gospel feel broken down slowly, then put back together. The kick and the bass player stop arguing.
The patterns you already play
The grooves your congregation expects, named properly, so you can call them up on purpose instead of hoping they arrive.
Counting without losing the feel
Just enough chart reading to survive a rehearsal where somebody hands you a sheet. If you can count to four out loud, you are ready.
Locking to a backing track
Click, in-ears, and the pocket. The single skill that separates drummers who get called back from drummers who do not.
Dynamics
Playing quiet without playing weak. Most church drummers only have two volumes. You are going to have six.
Transitions and cues
Following a worship leader in real time, catching the change before it happens, and fills that mean something.
Sunday simulation
A full set, start to finish, with everything from the previous seven lessons running at once. This is the week it becomes yours.
Hear the difference
Six sounds.
Go on, hit them.
These are my own samples, recorded on the kit at Trinity Baptist. Tap the pads or use the letter keys. Nothing plays until you ask it to.
The price goes up in November. Twelve seats, because twelve is how many drummers I can give real feedback to at once.
Take a seat, ₵199Starts Friday 5 September. Paid securely through Paystack.
What you get
- Eight pre-recorded lessons, twelve to fifteen minutes each, released across three weeks and yours to keep afterwards.
- A WhatsApp group with me and eleven other drummers, open the full three weeks. I answer there most evenings.
- One live video session at the end of week two, where you can ask me anything and play something back.
- The Sunday Service Groove Sheet PDF, with the eight core patterns written out and counted.
- Feedback on a recording of you playing, if you send one before the cohort ends.
Ten years of Sundays
Where I have been playing.
Who is teaching this
Kenneth Banahene Osei
I have been playing church music for close to ten years. I drum at Trinity Baptist Church in Kumasi, and before that I played for Haven City Music and Gospel Explosion at KNUST. I have shared a stage with Kofi Owusu Peprah and Pastor Sammie Obeng, among others.
I also run production for Teens in Worship at Trinity Baptist, which means I spend as much time listening to drummers as playing, and I have heard the same handful of problems come up again and again.
Before any of that I spent two years teaching Computing in a classroom. That part matters more than it sounds. Plenty of good drummers cannot teach. I know how to break something down, put it in an order that holds, and tell when somebody has actually understood it rather than just nodded.
This cohort runs under Prowess Music, which is where I keep the production side of my work.
Vouched for
People I have played behind.
This is cohort one, so there are no student results to show you yet. Rather than invent any, here are musicians and worship leads who have stood in front of my kit.
A short quote from a worship lead or musician KB has played with goes here. Two sentences, naming something specific.
A short quote from a worship lead or musician KB has played with goes here. Two sentences, naming something specific.
A short quote from a worship lead or musician KB has played with goes here. Two sentences, naming something specific.
Before you ask
The six questions I always get.
Most of the cohort works on a practice pad, a pillow, or the edge of a table. Four of the eight lessons need nothing but sticks and a surface. For the rest, an hour on your church kit during the week is enough.
No. Lesson four teaches only as much notation as you need to survive a rehearsal where somebody hands you a chart. If you can count to four out loud, you are ready for this.
Nothing. Every lesson is pre-recorded and yours to keep, so you watch when you can. The WhatsApp group stays open for the full three weeks and I answer there most evenings.
About two hours a week. Roughly thirty minutes of video and ninety minutes on the pad or the kit. The practice is where the change happens, not the watching.
It is built for drummers who already play. The point is not to teach you to keep time. It is to name what you are already doing so you can repeat it on purpose, and to fix the specific things that break under a click.
Eight pre-recorded lessons of twelve to fifteen minutes, the Sunday Service Groove Sheet PDF, a WhatsApp group with me and eleven other drummers for three weeks, and one live video session at the end of week two. The lessons stay yours after the cohort ends.
The last thing on this page
Twelve seats. September 5th.
Not ready to take a seat? Leave your name and I will send you the Sunday Service Groove Sheet, plus a note when the next cohort opens.