Music: The soundtrack to our lives. How can we live without it? Impossible. It has been there since the dawn of time, accompanying us every hour of every day. How blessed are we with this godly gift that speaks the universal language and conveys emotions that no words or images can match.

I am blessed to be born with a pair of super-sensitive – sometimes annoyingly – musical ears, which have naturally guided me to start learning several instruments throughout my teens, up until today. One of my favorite instruments is the drums, I remember buying my first drum set back in the early 2000’s and catching a few beats from here and there to start learning. It did work eventually, but it took a lot of time, and now I got good at it and I am very involved in the drums and percussion parts when my own original tracks are being composed and produced.

The Drum is among the oldest instruments to have ever existed, dating back to 5,500 BC. However, the modern drum set as we know it, is one the most recent instruments to join the popular music culture some 100 years ago. This means that one musician using both hands and feet in sync and independently gives him/her the ability to perform rhythms that required two or more musicians earlier in history.

Being one of the relatively recent instruments in music, it goes without saying that the methods of teaching the drums are also relatively fresh, and the freshest of them all is “The drum path” developed and written by Patrick Abdo, a young and talented industrial engineer and musician from Beirut, Lebanon, who decided to combine both his skills in engineering and music to embark on an entrepreneur’s journey and develop his impressive project with the slogan “All you need to know about drums, in one path.”

Before the birth of “The drum path” which started out as a physical book under the name “The drum path: From zero to advanced” that hit the market on Amazon and then grew into its own website and online academy, there was several – sometimes clashing – teaching philosophies. There’s the Western method, the French method, the African method, the Indian/Eastern methods and more. You can only imagine the number of books that are out there, each one explaining how to get started with drums, each one in their own different way.

Unlike the standard solfege system (With the Treble and Bass and other clefs) which are global standards, the drums (Represented by the percussion clef) still had some discrepancies on how to best represent drum parts and rhythmic values, all of which led to confusion among reading drum scores. Patrick states that he took the best of both worlds, and combined these standards in the most pedagogical way possible, facilitating the process of learning and understanding the instrument for beginners, intermediate and professionals altogether.

“In my 10 years of teaching drums to 1000+ students in private and online, I went through hundreds of permutations to reach the smoothest and most efficient method for any drums enthusiast, of any age or musical level, to embark on their journey and become the drummer they have always wanted to be!” Patrick says, as he talked about how he started out teaching students at his parents’ house, later teaching at major academic institutions in Lebanon, then teaching students online all around the world, until eventually launching his own Maestro Music Center in Beirut (2017), Erbil (2021) and Dubai (2022), where him and his now-experienced advanced students teach the drums and other instruments.

Patrick states: “This program is tailored to suit literally everybody wanting to play the drums: From its simplest beats, all the way to its full complexity, as a hobby or as a profession in live performance or even in teaching.” And he adds “Alongside the book, there’s the accompanying online material explaining every single page in the book. So basically, you can even learn to play the instrument without a teacher! And even teachers and academic institutions can use The drum path as their curriculum.”

I personally bought the book and started it form the beginning a few months ago. Even though I did know how to play the drums initially, it felt really comforting to revisit my basic principles in the beginning of the “The drum path: From zero to advanced” book, which did effectively fix some of the old bad habits that I carried all those years and never found the solution to. It’s also a really fun book, where there’s songs from all genres and tempo ranges where the student challenges himself/herself to increase the exercise speed and accuracy day after day.

The drum path is now reaching all four corners of the world through its social network presence on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and more, where free educational and fun content is posted regularly. Patrick Abdo, the young engineer, musician and entrepreneur proudly announced to me that he and his team are currently working on the next book “The drum path: From advanced to professional” as well as its new global certification program which accredits music schools all over the globe, also eventually working on customized drum sets and accessories under “The drum path” brand.

You can learn more the drum path where you can get your hands on the book, the online courses, and even access to direct support from the team at The drum path headquarters in Dubai, UAE.

I asked Patrick what his latest musical projects are, and he told me that he is currently performing with major artists in the Arab world all around the Middle East, as well as hosting workshops for intermediate and advanced drummers. “I have been very busy since the launch of The drum path, so I am not having much time for private tutoring like before. But thankfully, we have been working hard for the past couple of years as my older and more experienced students are now part of our team and we are all joining efforts to keep delivering the best possible educational quality in drums,” said Patrick.

“Nevertheless, one can always embark on their drum path journey on their own. The program and the books were designed in a way where students willing to start learning, can learn the instrument without an instructor; and they can always use the online videos to get a better understanding on every page of the book. On the other hand, professional drummers and drum teachers, and academic institutions can use The drum path as their main curriculum for their drums course (Both for Western and Eastern/Oriental styles.)” Patrick adds “You really have to check it out as it will be an enjoyable and beneficial experience equally fun to you as it was to us when we were developing the project.”