Mike Jensen - Drums

Mike has been playing and teaching drums for over 15 years. He has been an active part of the Wellington music scene during this time working with a variety of different groups and musicians such as singers, Iva Lamkum and Jess Chambers, as well as many other local bands and recording projects.

In 2005, Mike graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Percussion from The New Zealand School of Music where he studied with jazz greats, Roger Sellars and Lance Phillip.
 
More recently, he spent 18 months in Vancouver, Canada where he taught drums and played with popular Vancouver reggae band, Giraffe Aftermath.

Mike returned to New Zealand at the start of 2009 to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching, majoring in Music and Economics, and is now a registered secondary school teacher.

He currently plays drums in the rock group, Seven as well as writes and composes his own music.

He has a passion for teaching and playing drums and looks forward to sharing what he has learnt with you!

Mike is a consummate musician whose love of his craft is conveyed easily to his students. He has a very professional, patient, relaxed and inclusive teaching manner – relating to the students at their own level. As well as imparting technical skills, as part of their homework Mike gets kids to broaden their focus by exploring professional musicians performing on YouTube and drum demonstrations on the internet.  This is how to encourage kids to start dreaming! Best of all Mike’s enthusiasm is infectious and he has got our son having great fun – and hungry for more! It is never a challenge to get him to attend drum class - Jo Dawkins.

He is an awesome skilled drum teacher, very kind and groovy and we share our stories together about our week - Rohan, aged 8.

I like Mike teaching me the drums because he shows me good techniques for keeping beats. If I get something wrong he always encourages me to keep going. He’s really good at playing the drums himself too - Patrick, aged 9.