Music Lessons Are Now A Tax Write Off - Children's Arts Tax Credit (CATC)

5. What programs are eligible for the CATC?
To be eligible, a program must be supervised and suitable for children. Eligible programs include:

• a weekly program of a minimum eight consecutive weeks duration in which a minimum of 90% of all the activities are eligible activities;
• a program of a minimum five consecutive days duration in which more than 50% of the daily activities are eligible activities;
• a program of a minimum eight consecutive weeks duration offered to children by a club, association or similar organization offering a variety of different activities when more than 50% of the activities offered are eligible activities or more than 50% of the time scheduled for activities offered to children is for activities that are eligible activities (if both 50% tests are not met, a prorated portion of the fees will be allowed, representing the percentage of eligible activities offered by the organization or the percentage of time scheduled for these activities by the organization); and
• a membership of a minimum eight consecutive weeks duration in an organization if more than 50% of all the activities offered to children by the organization are eligible activities (if the 50% test is not met, a prorated portion of the fees will be allowed, representing the percentage of eligible activities offered to children by the organization).

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Bill Stewart- One of Modern Jazz Drumming's top Drummers

As a drummer, Bill Stewart's playing is distinguished by its melodic focus, and its polyrhythmic, or layered character. To describe someone's drumming style as "melodic" would mean there is a sense that you could "hum along" with discernible linear phrases which tell pieces of a story, akin to a vocalist, pianist, or saxophonist. Stewarts improvisations favor the development and layering of motivic ideas over the raw generation of excitement or display of technical prowess. Stewart has great touch, or dynamic precision, so that his ideas are articulated with an exactness and clarity. He has also achieved a very high degree of independence of his limbs, so that not only the ride cymbal and the snare/toms, but also the bass drum and hi-hat, are free to participate as melodic "first-class citizens." One possible reason for his continued success could be that his drumming is very approachable, being mostly vamp and lick based. Moreover, budding jazz drummers find him to be a very attractive influence because he has essentially taken exercises out of Ted Reed's Syncopation (a popular drum method book) and basic bop drum licks and turned them into music by articulating them fast and cleanly. This makes him very easy to transcribe.


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Movement & Dancing

                    An important concept of my philosophy is that the stroke is the most important aspect of playing the drums.  It’s the one way in which you get to express your own personality.  My belief is that, in terms of content, there really isn’t much new to be played.  When you think of the history of drumming, almost everything has been covered.  There are certain rhythms that keep cropping up again and again because they feel so good.  So what really makes a rhythm come off and the listener respond?  It’s the way the rhythm is played.  This is one reason why, as I said in the drum lesson on Attitude, it’s good to have a predetermined about what you’re going to play.  That way, you can concentrate your mental energy on how you are playing, rather than using that energy to think about what you’re going to play.  It’s also a good reason for keeping the basic idea simple.  In terms of ideas, you may think that one idea is “hipper” or more interesting than another, but the corniest idea can sound better than the hippest idea, depending how it is played.

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