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The Beginners Quick Guide to Drumming

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1 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION................................................... 5 1.1 90% of music uses these 7 basic drum beats ....................................................................................................... 5

2 A DRUM KIT PICTURE...............................................................11

3 HOW TO USE THIS E-BOOK.......................................................14 3.1 The sound files...............................................................................................................................................................14 3.2 What are all those tables ?........................................................................................................................................14

4 THE 7 MAJOR DRUM BEATS.......................................................16 4.1 8th Note 4/4 Rock and Pop Beat...............................................................................................................................16 4.1.1 The Motown Train Beat......................................................................................................................................20

4.2 Quarter Note Rock......................................................................................................................................................23 4.3 16th Note Beats – Ballards and Dance Style ........................................................................................................27 4.4 Slow 16th note beats / Ballard beats......................................................................................................................27 4.5 Disco/Dance 16th Note Beats ...................................................................................................................................30 4.6 Blues or 6/8 Beats.......................................................................................................................................................37 4.6.1 Triplets .................................................................................................................................................................42

4.7 Shuffle Beats................................................................................................................................................................46 4.8 Jazz Beats......................................................................................................................................................................52 4.8.1 Jazz Feet Co-ordination..................................................................................................................................54

5 SYNCOPATION.......................................................................57 5.1 Adding spice to your grooves with more bass drums........................................................................................57 5.1.1 Bass Drum Variation 1 ......................................................................................................................................59 5.1.2 Bass Drum Variation 2......................................................................................................................................60 5.1.3 Bass Drum Variation 3.......................................................................................................................................61 5.1.4 Bass Drum Variation 4......................................................................................................................................62 5.1.5 Bass Drum Variation 5......................................................................................................................................63 5.1.6 Bass Drum Variation 6......................................................................................................................................64 5.1.7 Snare Drum Syncopation.................................................................................................................................64

5.2 Syncopation in other drum beat styles .................................................................................................................66 5.2.1 Bass Drum Variations in a Quarter Note Beat.........................................................................................66 5.2.2 Bass Drum Variations in a 16th Note Beats................................................................................................67

5.3 Advanced Hand and Foot Syncopation...................................................................................................................69 5.3.1 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 1 ..........................................................................................70 5.3.2 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 2...........................................................................................71 5.3.3 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 3...........................................................................................71 5.3.4 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 4..........................................................................................72 5.3.5 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 5..........................................................................................72 5.3.6 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 1 ........................................................................73 5.3.7 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 2........................................................................74 5.3.8 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 3........................................................................75 5.3.9 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 4........................................................................76

5.4 Some final words on Syncopation............................................................................................................................77

6 USING THE HI-HAT TO GROOVE UP YOUR GROOVES ........................78 6.1 Disco/Dance 16th Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing...........................................................................78


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6.2 8th Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing .......................................................................................................81

7 HOW TO PLAY DRUM FILLS........................................................83 7.1 Expressing yourself as a musician...........................................................................................................................83 7.2 Double Stroke and Paradiddle based fills ............................................................................................................88 7.2.1 Double stroke roll..............................................................................................................................................88 7.2.2 Paradiddle based fills ........................................................................................................................................91

8 PLAYING SAFELY.....................................................................95 8.1.1 Protect your hearing!! Use Earplugs.............................................................................................................95 8.1.2 Sit up straight ....................................................................................................................................................97

9 SOME FINAL WORDS ...............................................................99

10 APPENDIX 1 ..................................................................... 102 10.1 8th Note Rock and Pop Beat ...............................................................................................................................102 10.2 Motown Train Beat ...............................................................................................................................................103 10.3 Quarter Note Rock Beat....................................................................................................................................104 10.4 Slow 16th Note Ballard Beat ..............................................................................................................................105 10.5 Rammstein “Seeman” Syncopation example of a 16th Note Ballard Song............................................107 10.6 Fast 16th note disco and dance beat................................................................................................................109 10.7 Fast 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat and closing on beat 4+ ................................................ 111 10.8 Fast 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat and closing on beats 2 and 4.....................................113 10.9 6/8 Blues Beats......................................................................................................................................................115 10.10 Basic Shuffle Beat ................................................................................................................................................116 10.11 Basic Jazz Beat ......................................................................................................................................................117 10.12 Feet for the basic Jazz Beat.............................................................................................................................118 10.13 Blank Drum Tabs for copying and making your own beats up...................................................................119 10.14 Listing of Sound Files and Cross References...............................................................................................120


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1.1 90% of music uses these 7 basic drum beats

Hi, my name is Rob Gordon and welcome to my beginners guide to drumming and how to play the 7 most popular drum beats of today.

First, many thanks for buying my drumming e-book. I hope that I deliver on all my promises to you including a full 12 months for a “no questions” refund.

I am passionate about drums and music and I hope that my passion comes through to you here in my e-book. As such, I have tried to write this book as if you where sitting in the room with me and so my writing style is rather informal. So hopefully this book is not as dry as many other drum education books that I have bought and oh boy I have bought a lot of drum books ☺.

To help you visualise who I am and just in case you wonder what I looked like he is a picture of me with two great drummers Gregg Bissonette (Steve Vai, Van Halen and Santana) and Chris Witton (Paul McCartney and now a music producer) at the Freedie Gee drum clinic in 2003. I’m the good looking fella ☺ in the middle with Gregg on my right and Chris on my left

1 Welcome and Introduction


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Now, I have always drummed as a

• kid bashing on cardboard boxes playing along to my favourite songs;

• to having formal lessons and to taking my Guildhall School of Music Grading's;

• to creating my own music to writing this e-book.

I love the drums, I love the beat and I love to make people dance and groove.

First, if you want even through this is an electronic book, I suggest that you print it out and put it in a notebook for easy reading and reference, whilst you are practising, but it is up to you.

Now, don’t feel that you have to try to do everything in this book at once. Of course, you can if you want to learn the beats really quickly but if you want to take your time then just work a little bit each day on each of the beats. You can make great progress by practicing a little bit every day and then be very pleasantly surprised at how far you have come. In a way this is similar to how this book was written, an hour’s writing every day for about few months and then hey presto I have written a drum book.

I’ve tried to organise this book, in order of what I feel, are the most common beat first. I’ve done this so that you know which areas you should concentrate more on to start with (e.g. the 8th note rock and pop beat to get you started) and therefore enjoying the drums as quickly as possible.

I want you to be extremely “successful” in your drumming because at the end of the day this is one of the most pleasing things to me. In having a passion for drumming, I truly hope I can help others to enjoy the drums the way I do and that has been a key motivator for me in writing this book.

I hope you enjoy the book and please feel free to email with any feedack and comments at my website www.learn-to-play-drums.com


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If you haven’t already please go and sign up to my newsletter at

http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com

the sign up is in the top left

I give out lots of free drumming tips on how to improve as a drummer and of course lots of secret drumming tips ☺ from the great drummers I take lessons from. Yes I spend a fortune on trying to get better myself and then I pass that information on via my website and newsletter to you.

With all that being said, we will hopefully have you in a few minutes or hours playing the 7 most common drum beats in modern music.

And from there you can start to play and jam with your friends and have great fun playing the drums!!!

I have been teaching drums as a hobby for about 3 years and I have found that the best way to learn is based on five core principles.

1) Learn the basic form of the 7 most popular drum beats of today and the common variations and then practice them by;

2) Tapping and playing along to the music you love on the radio or CD or iPod;

3) Learn 3 simple drum sticking rudiments to be able to play easy fills;

4) Learn stuff slowly and then and only then get faster; and

5) Play with other musicians and/or be in a band.

Now, the first principle is based on the fact that 90% of all popular western music beats are based on 7 main beats and some common variations, if you learn them you can very very quickly get to play for fun and with others. It is one of the things that makes the drum set such an easy(ish) and assessable instrument to learn.


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All my principles are important but let me stress that principle number 4 is very very important. Please, Please, understand that practice doesn’t make perfect it makes permanent and so if you learn something wrong to start with it is 10 times harder to put in right in the future, OK ?

So learn the hand and foot co-ordination for each of the beats slowly and then get faster as you get more comfortable.

And please don’t worry if you have to learn these beats very very slowly we all have to start somewhere, remember a baby has to crawl, fall, toddle, fall, toddle, fall, walk, fall and then run

So don’t ever be hard on yourself, if it isn’t as easy as you think it should be to start with.

With a little bit of time and patience you will overcome any initial co-ordination problems you may have and hopefully you’ll understand that that is the way you will learn and then progress forward.

There is a great saying in drumming, by Jason Bowld of Pitchshifter.

“If you go half as slow at the start then you’ll get there twice as fast”.

This probably relates to life as well but it is great as a drum learning motto too.

Personally, I took forever to get comfortable playing shuffle beats slightly because you don’t hear shuffle/swing music on the radio that much

So start slow and exact, get the strokes in the right place and then start to speed up and then start to play along to the music you like which is my principle number 2.

I mean how cool is it that you can learn and practice almost all the time ☺ whilst you listen to music you like. You can’t do that with too may other instruments.

Now, one last thing before we dive in please don’t get hung up on the names of the beats. Musicians and drummers tend to use these names because they have just become so used to them being called that over time. When I first got started I got horribly horribly confused �.


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The names are generally given by the number of times we hit the hi-hat in a bar of music, (e.g. the 8th note rock and pop beat means we hit the hi-hat 8 times in the bar). Don’t worry I will explain all this stuff later in this ebook.

Also, don’t worry if you don’t have a drum kit yet, just pretend by taping you hands and feet on the table and floor. Once you get going and fall in love with drumming then you can go and buy a second hand acoustic or electronic drum kit and then play the real thing.

Lastly, if you do have a drum kit now and have yet to start learning to play, please read my “Playing Safely” chapter before you really start to bash away!!


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The sound files that I have created for this book are quite large and that is even after I made them into “mp3” format. So I haven’t integrate them with the book because it would be over 20 megabytes huge, therefore you need to go to the webpage to download the zip file with all the sound files:

http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com/DrumBookAudio/DrumBookDownloadInstructions.htm

Copy this address into you web browser and follow the instruction there on how to download the files.

Alternatively, go to this link instead:

http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com/DrumBookAudio/DrumBookAudioFileIndex.htm

This page is a link to an index of all the files separately so you don’t have to download them in one go but just as you need them.

I know this is large and will take a while to download but I did this as I wanted you to have good quality sound files to hear the drum beats, because you learn drumming with your ears as well as by playing the beats too.

And truly lastly, I have at times gone off on tangents, but to warn you I have put in a “Rob Tangent Alert” I just can’t help myself and but hey its my book and it just had to be done ☺

So here's wishing you every success in your drumming journey and I truly hope that you will enjoy this e-book as much as I have writing it

So with all that said lets go and have a look at a drum kit so you know what drums and cymbals to hit……


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So here we go this is a drum kit

Picture courtesy of Premier Drum Company Ltd. The best makers of drums in the world in my humble opinion.

If you have always wondered what all those drums on a drum kit are the picture above is just to show you the drums and their names, if you are a little worried about what they are and how they sound then just go to my website where I have pictures of the drums and the sounds they make when you hit them.

The three core drums and cymbals are:

1. The hi-hat played with your right hand and left foot;

2. The snare played with your left foot; and

3. The bass drum played with your right foot.

If you are left handed and wanted to learn with you left hand as your main leading hand on the hi hat just reverse in your head where I say right to left. Alternatively, email me and I will send you the left hand version of this book

2 A drum kit picture


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Now here is a picture of drum kit from behind

Picture courtesy of Premier Drum Company Ltd.

Anyway, like I say don’t worry if you don’t have a drum kit yet. You can learn all you need to start by just tapping on your legs or the table top.

However, if you do want to actually hold some sticks and hit something then I would suggest some sticks and a "practice pad" and here is mine as an example sitting on my back lawn on a warm spring day ☺


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This pad is made or rubber and is inexpensive to begin drumming on ☺. It is also reasonably quiet!!

I use my practice pad lots for practicing different sticking patterns and rudiments. It actually lives in my bedroom and when I am waiting for say a bath to run I tap away for 10 mins. I find that playing a little often has over the year helped my playing loads.

Also, using a practice pad really makes you focus on your technique. I have mine in front of a mirror so I can see how my hand, arms and of course sticks are moving. However, as a beginner drummer you can concentrate on getting comfortable with the basic beats and fills ( based on the 3 easy rudiments) at slow to medium tempos without the need for lots of technique to start with.

However, going forward as you start to play faster ( and like all drummers you will) it will be time for you to best find a local drum teacher to show you basic moeller or push pull hand/wrist movements.


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3.1 The sound files

Through out the book you will see these references.

100 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 120bpm

These are my references to the sound files I have created along with the book.

Listen to these files to hear what I mean. They are MP3 files so they will play in any MP3 compatible player like Realplayer or Windows Media Player or iTunes. They are not directly linked to the sound file themselves, so clicking on them will NOT make them play

3.2 What are all those tables ?

To make this e-book as easy for a new drummer as possible, I have laid the beats out in, I hope, in an easy to understand table format rather than in drum music notation. Trust me, you can learn that in the future ☺

For example, here is the first drum beat for you to learn in the next chapter. It is the classic and standard 8th Note Rock/Pop beat.

3 How to use this e-book

Traditional Count

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand on hi hat

X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X

Right Foot on bass drum

X X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal

— — — — — — — —


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The first row is the count of the beat. This is what you count out loud or in you head to help your timing and limb co-ordination

You see to be a drummer you need to be able to count some, not much, just a little. ☺

The reason is to help you keep track of where you are in a bar of music and to help synchronise your hands and feet.

Now for this e-book you only need to be able to count in a couple of ways.

Listen to the sound file - 101 - 8th note beat count

Hopefully, this is pretty straight forward.

The second row represents your right hand and traditionally that hand holds the stick that hits the hi hat. (Hi-hat sound)

Have a look back at the picture to see where the hi hat is.

The third row represents your left hand and traditionally that holds the stick that hits the snare drum. The snare drum has that high pitched crack sound. (Snare drum sound)

The fourth row represents your right foot and traditionally that is the foot used to press the bass drum pedal to cause the beater to hit the big old bass drum, boom boom. (Bass drum sound)

The fifth row represents your right foot and traditionally that is the foot used to press and release the hi hat pedal and which causes the two hi hat cymbals to open and close. (Hi-hat opening and closing sound)

Now I am sure that you will have worked this out for yourself but I say it anyway:

• “X” means to play a downward stroke and hit the drum

• And “—“ means to hold your left foot down on the hi hat pedal and so keeping the hi hats closed together

• And “O“ means to release the hi hat pedal so that the hi hats open.

Now lets learn some drum beats ☺


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4.1 8th Note 4/4 Rock and Pop Beat

This is by far the most popular drum beat in modern western music. Every musician from Led Zeppelin to the Spice Girls have made music and records that use this beat. You will hear this beat or a variation of it all the time on the radio, satellite and TV

Why? Probably, because musicians are too lazy to use other beats and musicians have become so used to writing songs in 4/4 that they can’t be bothered to use other beats. They also use all the same chord progressions so that a lot of music sounds similar, but that’s for another day ☺

100 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 120bpm

Well, this is how to play this basic beat 8th Note 4/4 rock and pop beat. It is called an 8th note beat as you play 8 strokes on the hi-hat per bar of music and the bar has 4 quarter note beats within it, shown by the beats 1 2 3 4, which you play on the bass and snare drums.

Technically a bar of music (or measure if you are in the US) is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats (4 in this case) of a given duration that repeats with an accent, in a piece of music.

4 The 7 Major Drum Beats

Count 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X


— — — — — — — —


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But hey, don’t get hung up on this, if this make no sense just move on, it will one day, trust me ☺ I just had to put it in to be able to explain why an 8th note beat is an 8th note beat, OK.

As I said above “X” means to play a downward stroke and hit and “—“ means to hold the hi hats closed together with you left foot pressed down on the hi hat pedal.

When you play this you need to count the beat as follows:

101 - Basic 8th note rock beat count

To play this beat do the following one step at a time and then when you are comfortable move onto the next step:

1) Play (and count out aloud) with your right hand a continuous beat of “1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +” ;

2) Play your left hand on the beats of 2 and the 4 at the same time as your right hand on these beats; and

3) Play your right foot on the 1 and the 3 as the same time as your right hand.

Have that going and you are playing an 8th note rock and pop beat. If you have never done that before many congratulations as you have now become a drummer!!!!

If this is hard, just go very slowly to start with. As I have said, there is no shame in that, OK? ☺

Here is this beat at a nice easy paced 60 bpm for you to play along too:

102 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 60 bpm

Now once you have this going you can begin to practice all the time by playing along to your favourite 8th note rock music.

Here are some examples of 8th note rock and pop beats for you to play along too. I have listed these as, I think they are reasonable easy to play along with. The songs here are many and varied and in no particularly order of greatness, but just examples of music that I have jammed and tapped to over the years to improve my 8th note rock and pop beats.


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Artist Title Drummer

Pink We can work it out” Sad song Let’s Get The Party Started - Well actually most of the songs from the “Just Like a Pill” and “I’m not Dead” albums

I think Travis Barker of Blink 182 drummer fame plays on most of the “Just Like a Pill” album. The “I’m not album” uses lots of different drummers including Shawn Pelton and Mlyious Johnson

Robbie Williams Most of his songs but particularly favourites of mine include Angels, Let Me Entertain You , Rock DJ,

Chris Sharrock is Robbie’s live drummer but depending on the album a number of session drummers played.

Eminem Song For The Moment, Stan and Lose Yourself

Don’t know and if you do please let me know

Live Lighting Crashes, I Alone

Sly and the Family stone

Dance To The Music Gregg Erico

Oasis Roll with it, Champagne Alan White


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Supernova,

AC/DC Back in Black, Highway to Hell

Phil Rudd

Anastacia Sick and Tired and most of the songs on the “Anastasia” album

Josh Freese

Scissor Sisters Take your mama Paddy Boom (What a great name for a drummer!)

Coolio featuring L.V Gangsta’s Paradise Most likely a drum machine or loop but I don’t know who programmed it

Genesis Tonight, Tonight Invisible Touch

The Great Great Phil Collins

Charlotte Church Crazy Chick* Don’t know and if you do please let me know

Midnight Oil Most of their songs, but some of my favourites are Beds are Burning, Blue Sky Mining*, Short Memories, Bedlam Bridge, Outbreak of Love

Rob Hurst

Girls Aloud Love Machine Probably a session drummer, but


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who I don’t know

Aerosmith Dream On, Amazing, Don’t Want To Miss A Thing and the classic “Walk This Way” A piece of rock and hip-hop music history

Joey Kramer

Gnarls Barkley Crazy Most likely a drum machine programmed by either Gnarls or Barkley ☺

The Thompson Twins

Hold Me Now (Sorry couldn’t resist a classic 80’s favourite of mine, she left me you know �)

Don’t know and if you do please let me know

INXS New Sensation John Farriss

Rammstein Engel, Mein Heinz Brent and Mutter

Christoph Schneider

Paul Weller Peacock Suit, Wildwood, Broken Stones, Come on lets go

“The Mighty” Steve White ☺

The list is in fact endless!!!!!

4.1.1 The Motown Train Beat.

Now I’ll explain that the songs with a * next to them above such as the song Crazy Chick, amazing switch in places to what is called the “Motown Train Beat”


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It is still an 8th note rock beat but you play the snare drum on all the quarter note beats of “1 2 3 4” as follows:

The song New Sensation by INXS does exactly the same!!! It starts as a standard 8th note rock beat in the verses and then changes to the Motown Train Beat in the choruses.

It is still an 8th note rock/pop beat as we are playing 8 notes on the high hat, but here we are strongly accenting the beats of 1 2 3 and 4 by playing the snare drum on all of these beats. This has the effect of speeding up the beat by making it seem more faster, intense and urgent without actually changing the real speed. This is a common technique and is used by musicians and producers the world over to achieve that affect.

Now, that you know this, listen out for it and you’ll begin to notice the large number of songs that use this technique. For example I have listened to the great song “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies and never realised it does exactly the same thing until I was listening whilst writing this ☺

Amazing, it shows that you never stop learning and with the words “It will be two days till we say we’re sorry” I’ll move on.

The Motown train beat is called the Motown Train beat as it was frequently used by the great Motown drummers such as Benny Benjamin, Uriel Jones and Richard “Pistol” Allen. They bought the beat from the drum beats used to accompany a lot of church “Gopsel” music. Benny, Uriel and Richard

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X X X


X X


— — — — — — — —


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played on many of the Motown hits for the likes of the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell and Stevie Wonder.

Now, if you have an interest in Motown music, then I can’t recommend highly enough the DVD “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” it is a history of the house band that played on the hundreds of Motown records recorded in the 60’ and 70’s. For this DVD, they have got those guys and girls that are still with us together again playing some of those great Motown songs, so you can really see how they did it. It is truly and absolutely, brilliant.

Now the Motown train beat is in fact a beat that links to our next beat the Quarter note rock beat, which is in the next chapter.


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4.2 Quarter Note Rock

Quarter note beats are the staple grooves of many hard rock and heavy metal bands, but also turn up in many other musical settings such as Rhythm and Blues (RnB), Hip Hop, Electronic Dance, and Rock Dance music.

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Right Hand on the hi hat

X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X X X

Right Foot on the bass drum

X X X X


— — — — — — — —

When you play this you need to count the beat as follows:

201 - Basic quarter note rock beat count

Here is a quarter note rock beat.

202 - Basic quarter note rock beat

Examples of Quarter note rock are again many and varied, however, Quarter note beats tend to be used less often than 8th note beats as the main groove through out the whole song.

I tend to hear them in songs as a point of change in the feel of the song usually in the chorus or bridge. In the list below songs such as like Crazy


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Chick, New Sensation or Voodoo Child go from 8th note to quarter note to change the vibe of the song.

Like, the change to a Motown train beat changing to a quarter note beat is another common technique to change the “feel” in a song and usually coincide with other instruments dropping out of the mix and/or a change in the main chord patterns played by the guitarist/keyboardist.

Again, the change to a quarter note beat in the song is a examples of where the drumming enhances and complements the “musicality” of the song.


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Led Zeppelin Communications Breakdown, Rock and Roll**

John Bonham

Iron Maiden Prowler and Sanctuary**

Nicko McBrain

The Blues Brother Gimme Some Loving Willie Hall

Foreigner Cold As Ice Dennis Eliott

Faithless Mass Destruction* Most likely a drum machine

Free Alright Now Simon Kirke

INXS New Sensation Jon Farriss

Foo Fighters Best of You Taylor Hawkins

Lenny Kavitz Going to go my way Cindy Blackman

Rouge Trader Voodoo Child Cameron McGlinchey

White Stripes Behind the Door Meg White

LaBelle Lady Marmalade

Rihanna SOS (Has the 80’s classic Tainted Love sampled throughout)

Most likely a drum machine

Soft Cell Tainted Love 808 Drum Machine

Nelli Furtido Maneater Most likely a drum machine

Queen We Will Rock You Roger Taylor

*Faithless, Nelli Furtido, Rihanna show you don’t have to be a heavy rock band to have fast or slow quarter note rock music as the groove in your


PAGE 26

music. Faithless are in the electronic dance music genre ☺ and they write great thought provoking lyrics too They are great and I love them!!

**A number of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin songs are really very fast 8th note rock beats but as a beginner they are good to play along too as practice for quarter note rock, that is until your right hand is strong and faster enough to play fast 8th note rock.

In fact there does come a point when the speed of a song is just to fast to play 8th notes on the high hat with one hand and so you can keep the same speed of beat but by playing a quarter note beat instead.


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4.3 16th Note Beats – Ballards and Dance Style

16th note beats fall, to me into two main categories Fast and Slow.

Fast 16th note beats tend to use both hands on the hi-hat to play the 16th notes and slower 16th note beats will tend to use just the single leading hand playing the hi-hat or ride cymbal. This change in technique makes a big difference to the feel and the vibe of the groove. Logically, it shouldn’t but the change in technique of one hand vs two does. Maybe my technique isn’t good enough ☺ something more for me to practice.

Here are the counts for 16th note beats.

First the traditional count as I was taught

301 - 16th note beat count traditional

And second the more modern count you will hear

302 - 16th note beat count modern

4.4 Slow 16th note beats / Ballard beats

These are played at slower tempos around 60 to 90 bpm than the 8th note and quarter note beats above. The 16th notes are usually played with one hand on the hi hat playing all the 16th notes, but can be played with two hands alternating

At 60 to 90 bpm, you can use just one arm however when if the tempo goes up much faster your hand and arm start to fall off !!! That is why fast 16th note dance groves are played with a single stroke roll, but we will come on to that next,

Here is a slow 16th note beat

303 - Slow 16th Note ballard beat

Slow 16th note are also called “Ballad Grooves” because they tend to accompany ballard type songs. Think Loniel Richie, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion who sung the theme from the film Titanic being a good example of what I mean.


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Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X


— — — — — — — —

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X


— — — — — — — —

Here is a small selection of sixteen note ballard songs.


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Lionel Ritchie Stuck On You Probably JR Robinson (Great LA Session drummer)

Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Rhythm Street Band.

Express Yourself** James Gadson

Bill Withers Use me** James Gadson

Rammstein (Yes heavy rock bands can do 16th note ballards too)

Seeman Christoph Schneider

Genesis Throwing it all away Phil Collins

Robbie Williams Advertising Space Chris Sharrock

Frankie goes to Hollywood

The Power of Love* Peter Gill

* Not 16th note all the way through the song

**These two songs will probably be to start with too fast for you to play with one hand. They are also pretty funky as James Gadson was a seriously funky drummer. You can use these as play alongs for the next section on faster 16th note grooves.

Now lets move onto fast 16th note beats and the whole wide world of dance music……..


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4.5 Disco/Dance 16th Note Beats

First fast 16th note is music is commonly known as disco (for those over 30) and dance music (for those under 30) ☺

304 - 16th Note Disco/Dance Beat

So if any of you have taken any aerobics classes (OK, maybe not for most of you boys out there) or more likely been to a disco/club this will be the main type of music played.

Why?

Because it is played a higher tempo and that fits well with people dancing by giving a sense of urgency and speed to the song to get you up on the dance floor shaking that body and booty of yours!!

Most 16th note dance grooves have a tempo up and around 130 to 150 beats per minute (BPM).

Here in the UK, dance music is huge and so we have a lots of dance music on the radio. We also have lots of hip hop too but that is for another e-book and day……

Anyhow, as we have lots of 16th note grooves it of course makes it sound very natural to our British ears!!

Now dance music is played by playing the 16 notes in the bar on the hi hat with a single stroke roll.

What is a single stroke roll I hear you ask ?

The single stroke roll is the foundation stroke of all drumming and is simply a right hand stroke and then a left hand stroke repeated again and again and again.

A single stroke roll is the first drum rudiment you will ever learn if you go straight to a drum teacher and be taught and it goes like this


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305 - Single Stroke Roll

I have alternated this between the snare and high tom so you can hear the difference and the beat in the roll. Count out the 16th note beat to get the feel of the beat.

And the tab for playing it

Traditional Count 1 e + & 2 e + &

RightHand X X X X

Left Hand X X X X

Traditional Count 3 e + & 4 e + &

RightHand X X X X

Left Hand X X X X

And here is the same roll at 120bpm

305a - 120 BPM - Single stroke roll alternate drum

which is more up to a dance music speed.

Pretty simple on paper, but trust me you will practice this forever to make it sound smooth and balanced!!

Now to play this groove you play the single stroke roll on the hi hat and then more the right hand down on the backbeats of 2 and 4 to hit the snare, this gives the groove its “back beat”. The bass drum is then played on the 1 and 3 to give the “downbeat”

A Rob Tangent Alert

A little side point here is that a lot of dance music is created electronically, that is the beat is programmed into a computer sequencer or drum machine or sampled and then modified by the musician as required for their own music needs and wants.

This means that sometimes the programmed beats can be impossible to play a as four limbed drummer (unless you are Zorro who has played with Bobby Brown, Lenny Kravitz and is an independent drummer extraordinaire or


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Guestlove, the drummer with The Roots who have a Seriously Funky Hip Hop Rap style).

It is cool to know that “Dance Music” has developed into many genres such as Trance, Hip Hop, Jungle, Drum n Bass, Trip Hop and Dancehall. All with their own particular drum sounds and formats.

Also, a lot of music has over dubs, that is extra hits or sounds added in addition to the main drum lines at other times. This can obviously make them harder to play.

A good example of this is “Ain’t Nobody” by Rufus (Chaka Khan was the lead singer) with the drums played by JR Robinson, I read he played the hi-hat line in one take and the snare and drum in another take.

Taking this theme even further a number of songs by Moby on his “Play” and “18” albums, have per Moby upwards of 12 to 16 tracks that are playing drums, 3 tracks with bass drums, 4 snare tracks etc layer upon each other.

In some ways a human drummer just can’t compete here, so don’t, I guess would be my wise words.

Lastly, don’t misunderstand me here I think that this is perfectly good musicianship and we as drummers and musicians too should not “bemoan” musicians that do this, if that is their artistic expression: good on them I say!!

But when they need to play live that’s when a great human drummer can make the “electronic” drums great in a live setting. Go and listen to the great electronic music from The Bays with Andy Gangadeen playing drums and best of all, all their music is free.

And if it tickles your fancy make music like Moby and then hire great drummers to come and play with you live instead ☺ and then you will earn the copyright royalties etc, but that is whole other story for another e-book.

Anyhow, enough of my ramblings…..

And, back to 16th note disco/dance beats and how to play them.


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Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X (Right hand moves to hit the snare drum)

X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X X


— — — — — — — —

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X (Right hand move to the snare drum)

X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X X


— — — — — — — —

In 16th note dance music, the bass drum tends to be play on every beat, that is beat 1 2 3 and 4. This is generally known as playing “4 on the floor”. The “4 on the floor” groove is part of what makes dance music danceable


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The bass drum playing on each beat (or quarter note to give it is proper name) gives the dancers a really strong reference point of where the beat is for them to dance along to.

306 - 16th note four on the floor beat

You will also find that 8th note rock beats that are more dance rock songs will also use the “4 on the floor” bass drum pattern to increase their dancability factor.

The song Voodoo Child by Rouge Traders being a current classic example (if you are reading this in ten years time then this song will be an old classic example)

Anyhow, the song is generally an 8th note rock dance type song, but in the chorus and pre chorus the 8th notes on the hi-hat drop out leaving a very strong and danceable “4 on the floor” bass drum, which is to us drummers (yes, you are a drummer now) is a straight ¼ note rock beat.

You need to listen to the song if this doesn’t make sense.

Now if you have mastered the co-ordination above the next thing do is play and jam along to 16th note songs.

The reason I say that is, and this is my personal experience, as 8th note beats are so prevalent and everywhere that you will find that you will get hold of them quite quickly and be playing them in no time at all.

16th note beats are less common and so you don’t get so much “tapping” practice time!! Also, tapping 16th note songs is even more annoying to friends and family than 8th note songs ☺! Trust me, I have the bruises to prove it

The beauty of practicing 16th note beats mean that you are using your left hand equally with your right, for a change, and working on the left is always a tougher thing to do and so being “normal” people we tend to move back to the things we can do more easily and that for us drummers mean generally tapping along to 8th note songs.

Here are examples of fast sixteen note beats (not all of which have opening and closing hi hats).


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Again these are in no particularly order of greatness just examples of music that I have jammed and tapped to over the years to improve my 16th note beats and grooves.


Red Hot Chilli Peppers

The Zephyr song Chad Smith


Around the world Chad Smith

Fatboy Slim Weapon of choice

Natiale Imbruglia Torn

Hootie and the blowfish

Only want to be with you

The Sugar Hill Gang

Rappers Delight Keith Le Blanc

KC and the Sunshine band

That’s the way I like it

Robert Johnson

Sugarbabes Stronger

Faithless Insomnia* My guess is a drum machine

Franz Ferdinand Take me out** Paul Thomson

Faithless Mass Destruction* My guess is a drum machine

Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag* Pete Brown

James Brown Funky Drummer*** Clyde Stubblefield

*Not 16th notes for the whole song but it switches between 16th notes and 8th notes between the verse and the chorus.


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*Not 16th notes for the whole song but it switches between 16th notes and 8th notes and even some quarter note grooves too.

***I had a number of thoughts about putting this song in this list. It is the most sampled and most funky drum beat ever. Clyde plays the 16th note hi hat pattern with one hand for over 8 minutes. That truly takes some serious stamina and technique. The snare and bass drum are syncopated all over the place with lots of ghost notes (see later sections on what syncopation is and ghost notes are notes played very quietly that add to the groove) however as a song to play along to now, just play the standard 16th note disco groove over the top and enjoy the ride with Clyde. And know, that if one day you can play the Funky Drummer groove with one lead hand on the hi hat and with all the funk of Clyde you will be a very good drummer ☺ and probably giving me lessons!!!!.


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4.6 Blues or 6/8 Beats

The next 3 beats are all very closely related as Blues, Shuffle and Jazz beats developed from the American South in the early 20th Century. These three musical genres have their history based on the fusion of African music and classical European music of the time.

What came truly first 6/8 blues beats, shuffles, jazz I don’t know. They are very closely related because they are based on accents and note groupings of 3. In drumming, groups of 3 notes played in the space of 2 are known as triplets.

These beats are not so common as 8th note rock and pop beats (unless you just listen to Jazz FM ☺), but are actually in the history of modern drumming rhythms that existed well before 8th note rock and pop grooves and beats. 8th Note rock and pop beats developed in the late 50’s and 60’s. The shuffle developed with and comes from the music of Jazz, where Swing is the thing and Blues.

Also, as jazz, shuffle and blues beats are the mother and father beats of soul and funk and these 2 beats are the mother and father beats of hi-hop beats, then by playing and learning these beat styles you will be laying the foundations within yourself to play many of the more complicated and contemporary beats of today too. Now is that cool or what!!!

Especially when you realise that a lot of “Hi-Hop” uses sampled and copied grooves from the soul and funk bands of the 60’s and 70’s and these drummers learnt to play Blues, Shuffle and Jazz styles first and well before 8th note rock and pop developed.

Musically, blues music is based on groups of 12 bars (you may have heard of 12 bar blues. This is a standard form of chords changes (like C, F, and G) that are played over 12 bars.

You will have heard it a hundred times in many different ways, but just in case you haven’t. Here is a 12 bar blues chord progression


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401 - 12 bar blues chord progression

And here is a the standard Blues drum beat. The key thing here as you can see below is we play 6 notes on the hi-hat (and not 8 as before) and the snare falls on the 4th beat:


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If you play this beat whilst listening to the 12 bar blues chord progression and you’ll get that blues feel whilst playing it.

Here is a standard blues beat

1 2 3 4 5 6

Right Hand on the hi hat X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare X

Right Foot on the bass drum X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal in closed position on first beat

— — — — — —

402 – 120 BPM Basic blues 6/8 beat


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Moody Blues Knights In White Satin

REM Everybody Hurts Bill Berry

INXS Never tear us apart John Farriss

Areosmith Crying Joey Kramer

Fats Domino BlueBerry Hill

Pink Album song

Aretha Franklin Natural Woman Bernard Purdie

James Brown It’s a Man’s World

Radio Head Subterranean Homesick Alien

Phil Selway

Percy Sledge When a Man Loves a Woman

The Animals House of the Rising Sun

John Steel

John Lennon War is over

Live Most song from throwing copper album e.g. I alone

The Beatles Norwegian Wood Ringo Starr

The Jools Holland Big Band

Valentine Moon


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Artis Title Drummer

Tom Jones Delilah

Muse Feeling Good Dominic Howard


Breaking the Girl Chad Smith

Goo Goo Dolls Iris

The Pogues with Kirsty McColl

Fairy Tale of New York

Andrew Ranken

Some quick comments on some of these songs:

Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin – Probably one of the greatest Aretha Franklin songs and a nice easy paced beat to play along with to learn the 6/8 blues beat.

Never tear us apart by INXS – A great and classic love song from the wonderful INXS who have given us such great dance rock music over the years, but this song sees them go all lovely and ballardy If you watched the INXS Rockstar programme I wanted Sweet Suzie McNeil to win, I wonder why ☺…..

Crying by Aerosmith – A great and classic blues rock ballard from the wonderful Aerosmith, nice easy paced 6/8 beat and some great straight forward fills. Great drumming from Joey Kramer who drums for the song so well

Breaking the Girl by Red Hot Chilli Peppers – This is a monster of a song you will need to learn this very slow and build up speed over time. You can play the basic 6/8 pattern to start with but the full version has syncopation and some lighting fast triplet fills in the main beat. Probably, one to learn after you have been playing a while.

Fairy Tale of New York by The Pogues with Kirsty McColl – This is a medium paced 6/8 based song and is probably the greatest Christmas song ever.


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It has the most classic line of all time when Shane MacGowan sings “ I could have been someone” and Kirsty replies “ Well so could anyone”

Priceless, you might need to have lived a little to understand that one.

It is now a very bitter sweet song for many people due to the tragic death of Kirsty McColl in 2000, when she was hit by a speed boat whilst swimming on holiday in Mexico. A tragic loss to the world of music, RIP Kirsty.

4.6.1 Triplets

At this point I need to introduce you to triplets. Triplets are a wonderful sticking combination, and they are a foundation of Jazz, Shuffle and Blues beats.

Triplets can be used as fills and grooves or a combination of both in all of these beat styles.

For example the Breaking the Girl groove is an example of using triplets within a 6/8 songs to spice it up.

We count a triplet in many ways but here is a couple of ways

403 - Triplet Count – Traditional

404 - Triplet Count - Word

And here is the sticking R L R L R L

A couple of points here and without insulting your intelligence you can see that this sticking involves playing 3 strokes in the space of 1 beat, which becomes 6 strokes in the space of two beats or 12 strokes in 4 beats if we double it up to a full bar.

The next point is that your hands alternate on the beats and the sticking repeats every 2 beats.

If you start with your right hand on beat 1, then on beat 2 you start with your left hand as follows:


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Traditional Count 1 + & 2 + &

Word Count One trip Let Two trip Let

Right

Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X


Word Count Three trip Let Four trip Let

Right

Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X

As I have explained, triplets are groups of 3 notes that are played in the space of two notes.

In the example above we are playing 3 triplet 8th notes in the space of two normal 8th notes.

Have a listen ☺

405 - Triplet roll on the snare drum

Once you have the hands going it is time to add your feet on the beats of 1, 2, 3, and 4 to give you a ¼ note pulse underneath the triplet flow of your hands.


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Word Count One trip Let two trip Let

Right

Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X

Right Foot X

Left Foot X

406 - Triplet roll on the snare drum with feet

And here is the tab for this:


Word Count One trip Let Two trip let

Right

Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X

Right Foot X

Left Foot X


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Word Count Three trip let Four trip let

Right

Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X

Right Foot X

Left Foot X

And just so you can here how triplets can be used here is the “Breaking the Girl” groove from Chad Smith and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

407 - Breaking the Girl


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4.7 Shuffle Beats

The Shuffle beat is based on triplets, triplets are groups of 3 notes that are played in the space of two notes, this probably will not mean much at this time, you need to listen to shuffle beats first before I talk you though how to play a shuffle so go listen to some shuffle based songs, go and log on to ITunes and listen to the samples of the songs I have mentioned below or buy them if you are feeling flush ☺

First, a little word of warning, to learn a shuffle if you are new to drumming takes a little bit of time. It was the hardest co-ordination of hands and feet that I faced as a drummer.

Shuffle are based on triplets; triplets are groups of 3 notes that are played in the space of 2 beats and 3 neatly divides into 6 and 12, which neatly fits into 12 Bar Blues song forms.

Shuffles are very much on the feel side of drumming and because of that it really helps to listen to shuffle based songs first and to tap along for a while to really get that feel of the “swing” in the shuffle groove, so please listen to some shuffle songs first. It will make the following much much easier.

That said feel free to skip this chapter for the time being and come back to it another time if it is a bit too much now.

But if you want to learn to Shuffle then please read on ☺

Right,

Now that you have got some shuffle swing groove in your head you need to listen to the shuffle drum beat counted.

501 - Shuffle Beat Count

And here is a shuffle beat

502 – 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat

To play the hi hat shuffle pattern, a lot of instruction books say play a triplet and remove the middle note.

That sounds really easy but well I could never do that. So I taught myself to play the right hand hi hat shuffle pattern as follows:


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Now, take this real slow to start with

1) Count out aloud “e 1 pause e 2 pause e 3 pause e 4 pause”;

2) Now tap your hand on the e 1 e 2 e 3 e 4 but not on the pause, but still count out loud to yourself “pause”. (This gets you use to the sensation of pausing between the strokes which is the hard thing to do at first);

3) Once you can get that going stop counting the pause but leave a gap, you should now be doing a quick double tap with a pause in between the double taps; and

4) Now start to go faster by making the pause smaller and the double tap quicker and then you will be doing a shuffle.

Now here is a good point to say that when you master the shuffle it means you can play a jazz beat too.

So how about that being two for the price of one!!

This is because a jazz beat is in fact half of a shuffle beat.

Here it is played nice and slow at 60 bpm

503 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat Hi-hat Pattern

And here it is at 120 BPM

503a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat Hi-hat Pattern

Don’t feel you have to get this fast too quick. I have just put it here to show you where you can get to as you get more comfortable.

Now once you are comfortable with the right hand part on the hi-hat (this is the actually shuffle) we need to co-ordinate our right hand playing the shuffle hi-hat pattern with our right foot playing the bass drum on beats 1 and 3

504 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and bass only

Can you hear how the second hit of the hi-hat is co-ordinated with the bass drum on beats one and three?

Here it is up to speed at 120 BPM


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504a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and bass only

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e


X X X X X X X X


X X

As always do this nice and slow

Now, we need to get you playing the shuffle hi hat pattern with your left hand playing the snare on beats 2 and 4.

Here is how it sounds

505 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and snare only

And here is the tab

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X

And here it is up to speed

505a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and snare only


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And here is the basic shuffle beat with all the parts together

Please be aware that as I am showing you how to play this using drum tables I can’t truly show you the true timing of the strokes. You need to listen and feel a shuffle beat and copy that. Use the tab below as a guide and remember to start slow and count.

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X


— — — — — — — —


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The following songs are good songs to listen to get a feel for shuffle beats.


Blues Brothers Band

Sweet Home Chicago

Willie Hall

Booker T and the MG’s

Green Onions Al Jackson Jnr

Bad Company Can’t Get Enough of Your Love

Simon Kirke

The Jools Holland Big Band (with Mick Hucknal on vocals)

T-Bone Shuffle


Higher Ground Chad Smith

James Brown Think Melivin Parker

Here is a bit of background on these songs

Sweet Home Chicago – Blues Brothers Band with Willie Hall on drums – If you want to learn to shuffle this is a great song to learn how to feel the shuffle. It is long and with a constant shuffle groove throughout without to much else to confuse you. Also, if you have never seen the film “The Blues Brothers” from which this song is in, then you really must see as it is a classic with some great soul and Blues music from James Brown, Ray Charles and Arthea Franklin all well supported by the Blues Brothers Band including Steve Cropper on guitar and Willie Hall on drums.

Green Onions – Booker T and the MG’s with the late great Al Jackson

Jnr on drums – Again this is a great song to play along with to learn to play a shuffle and this song is a total Rhythm and Blues anthem.

Higher Ground – Red Hot Chilli Peppers with Chad Smith – This is a hard funk shuffle with ghost notes. It is really an intermediate players song, but hey as a beginner you can just play along without the ghost notes to


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start with. This groove would also fall into the funk section, if I had a funk section in this e-book ☺.

Playing this groove with the ghost notes is actually pretty hard and takes a fair bit of practise to get going (in my experience), however once you get it going the ghost notes it really makes it groove.

Think – James Brown with Melvin Parker – This not a full shuffle it is what is called a Quasi Shuffle sort of half way between a shuffle and a straight 8th note beat. It is thus a real feel thing and the only way to get there is to listen to the track and play along. I find I can play along with a reasonable feel but when trying to play myself alone it is much harder!!!

To see this being played think about buying Zorro’s DVD – “The Commandments of R&B Drumming: A Comprehensive Guide to Soul, Funk and Hip Hop" – I recommend that you buy either Zorro’s book or DVD and preferably both as you begin to progress. I refer to the book and DVD all the time to help myself improve. Both are great reference material and learning material.

You see so much of today’s music has been influenced by 60,70 and 80’s Gospel, Soul and Funk that this book/DVD can’t but help you improve by giving you an understanding of what came before.

Also, Zorro spent 6 to 7 years writing the book so just think how much information he didn’t put into it so as just to leave us with the important stuff. Thanks Zorro!!!

Zorro has also put in some great list of songs to listen too and ways to practise, but I won’t spoil the surprises for you.

Click Here if you want to purchase this book from Musicroom.com.

A little help from my Friend – The Beatles

A Beatle classic with Ringo on top form swinging and shuffling away to laid down the foundation for this great 60’s pop song.


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4.8 Jazz Beats

The swing pulse is the father, mother, and granddaddy of the 7 beats here in this book. The history of the modern drum beats comes from the swing beat of the early 1920’s. A swing beat has a lovely wonderful gentle feel that makes you want to move and dance in time to the beat/rhythmic pulse of the music.

The jazz beat derives from the 3 over 2 polyrhythm which is moving into intermediate drumming and I cover this in my 600 page complete The Beginners Guide to Drumming e-book, which you can get on my website.

However, at this time you can think of a jazz beat as in a way half of a shuffle beat.

The major difference that Jazz Beats have in contrast to the other beats in this book is the leading right hand pattern is played on the ride cymbal. The ride cymbal gives the groove a different sound than if it were played on the hi hat. This gives us the distant jazz sound of the longer ringing wash sound from the ride.

Also, the snare and bass drum are played more lighter and more softly in contrast to the stronger accents that 8th note rock and pop and shuffle grooves on the main beats of 1 2 3 and 4.

Listen to this standard jazz beat and see what I mean:

601 – 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat

Note for learning purposes in the next sound file, I have mixed the bass and snare loud and heavy so you can hear how they co-ordinate with the ride cymbal. When playing in a real jazz situation, as I say above the bass and snare are played much softer.

Listen to this and see what I mean:

601a – 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat –Heavy Snare and bass

And here is how you count it

602 - Basic Jazz Beat Count

However, this is how to play one


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1 2 e 3 4 e

Right Hand on the ride cymbal

X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X


O X — O X —

The basis jazz beat in addition to a common bass drum on beats 1 and 3 uses the hi-hat with the left foot to play/accent the 2 and 4 beat. The use of the your two feet together in playing this beat really helps give an underlying foundation/groove to it.

However, lets get you playing the jazz cymbal pattern

Here it is played nice and slow at 60 bpm

603 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat Ride Cymbal Pattern

The ride cymbal pattern is the same as the shuffle hi hat cymbal pattern but this time we play it on the ride cymbal rather than the hi-hat This gives us the jazz sound of the long ring wash sound from the ride.

Now once you are comfortable with that we need to co-ordinate our right hand playing the ride pattern with our right foot playing the bass drum on beats 1 and 3

604 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat ride and bass only

Can you hear how the second hit of the ride cymbal is co-ordinated with the bass drum ?


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604a - 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat ride and bass only

When you are comfortable with your right hand and your right foot working together we can introduce the left hand on the snare

605 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat

4.8.1 Jazz Feet Co-ordination

Now when you are happy playing the main jazz beat without the left foot, we can move on to bringing your left foot into the groove.

Now I am going to show you a good method of bringing your left foot in to play the hi hat and making it strongly connected with you bass drum foot.

It is called the “Heal Toe” method as you will see why in a minute, but don’t worry it is pretty easy to master, because if I can, then anybody can!!.

Now here is our standard jazz beat but with just the right and left feet playing on the quarter notes

606 - Basic Jazz Beat with just feet playing

1 2 e 3 4 e

Right foot

X X

Left Foot

X X

In this sound file I have brought the sound of the bass and hi hat louder so you can easily hear it

Now to help to get this going, we’ll use the “heal/toe” method.

The heal/toe method has you rolling your heal and toe between the heal of one foot and the ball of your other foot at the same time like this

1) On beat 1 – Put the ball of your right foot down and at the same time rock back onto the heel of your left foot.

2) On beat 2 – Do the opposite that is put the ball of your left foot down and at the same time rock back onto the heel of your right foot.

3) On beat 3 – Repeat same as beat 1


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4) On beat 4 – Guess what you do ????? Repeat same as beat 2!!!! Hey isn’t this drum thing simple or what!!!

What you are doing is having you feet play the quarter note pulse of the music which gives the groove that solid feel, but for the time being, this will help you get your hands and feet in synch with each other and in time.

Now go back to the hands and whilst playing the Jazz beat with your hands add the heal/toe feet movements of your feet.

Take this slowly and easy to start with as always.

Get you hands and feet moving right and correct first and only then start to play faster.

You can, of course, use this technique with all other types of beats too.

As with the Shuffle beat once you have the core movements correct you need to listen and play along with Jazz songs as Jazz is a huge feel style of music. So play along to your hearts content to get the sense and feel of Jazz.

Jazz drumming is a world within the drumming world and many drummers spend a lifetime within it.

The following songs are good songs to listen to get a feel for Jazz and some shuffle beats.


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Cllfford Brown and Max Roach

Cllfford Brown and Max Roach

Max Roach

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

Moanin Art Blakey

Roy Haynes We Three Roy Haynes

Miles Davis Milestones Philly Joe Jones

Art Pepper Art Pepper + Eleven Mel Lewis

Thelonious Monk Monk’s Dream Frankie Dunlop

Dave Brubeck Live at Carnegie Hall (includes the wonderful “Take 5” song)

Joe Morello

Buddy Rich The Monster Buddy Rich

Robbie Williams Swing when you are winning

Ralph Simms

Well, that is the 7 beats done. I hope that you have got the hang of them OK.


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5.1 Adding spice to your grooves with more bass drums

If you listen to the songs I have listed above and in particular in the 8th note rock and pop grooves, you will quickly hear that there are more snare hits and bass drum hits in the these songs than the basic 8th note rock and pop grooves I showed you earlier.

They have the common 8th note rock and pop beat at their core, but the drummer or drum programmer has added extra snare and bass drum strokes to the groove. This is called many things but in musical terms it is called “Syncopation”.

A syncopated rhythm is a rhythm where a beat falls with equal emphasises in between the main beats. In our case, of the 8th note rock and pop beat, the main beats of 1,2,3 and 4 are the main beats. These are the beats that are the pulse of the music.

These beats are called the “on” beats and the beats in between marked up by the “+” sign are called the “off” beats.

All styles of music use syncopation in some way or another to make the groove more interesting and to fit with other parts of the song played by the guitar, bass, keyboards and of course the vocalist. I hear syncopation in pretty much all music styles: Rock, Jazz, Soul, RnB, Pop, , But two of the biggest genres that use syncopation are Funk and Hip Hop.

Funk and Hip Hop are probably the two biggest users of syncopation. To get a feel for this style you need to go and listen to James Brown’s music and the drummers of James Brown including Clayton Filliyau, Nat Kendrick, John “Jabo” Stacks, and Clyde Stubblefield. These guys laid down some of the most famous funk tracks ever recorded Cold Sweat, Pappa got a brand new pig bag and the all time classic’s Get Up I Feel Like a Sex Machine and Funky Drummer.

Hip Hop is musical decendant of Funk and Soul and so many of today's great hip hop grooves have come from the "Funk" drummers of the 60's and 70's. To hear some great hip hop grooves with syncopation listen to albums such as Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds, The Roots,

5 Syncopation


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The History of Hip Hop. Just a little word of warning some the of the lyrics can by rude and to be honest very rude in some cases, so check the warning labels on the albums before you buy for yourself or your children if rude material is not for you.

Another great use of syncopation is by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers with Chad Smith on drums. The RHCP's have a rock funk style but with some hip hop in some songs too. However, humble as ever Chad says “I’m just copying beats from the great soul and funk drummers of the 60’s and guys like Ian Paice of Deep Purple and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin”.

Now leaving the history lesson behind, very briefly and for your information there are in fact “8x8x8x8” different ways of playing an 8th note rock groove, so you should never in threoy run out of 8th note grooves to play. Also, to learn them will keep you going for a while, like forever if you wanted to play all those permutations.

But lets be serious and thankfully due to that fact most people like some consistency in there grooves to be able to dance to them, the 8th note groove tends to keep a constant hi-hat and the snare on the 2 and 4 and the bass on the 1 and 3 and variations around that common groove pattern.

It is the variations around the common 8th note groove pattern that gives us the syncopation that spices and funks up our grooves.

So to get you going for now and playing similar and in some cases the same grooves you may have heard on your favourite songs here are 6 very common bass drum variation for you to learn and to help spice and funk up your 8th Note beats as a beginner for now.

As always start slow and be precise and then only start to speed up!!


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5.1.1 Bass Drum Variation 1

701 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V1


The main beat occurs on the 1 2 3 and 4 beats and this is where the pulse of the beat is.

I have added an extra beat with the bass drum on the 1+. This make the groove syncopated as I have explained above as you are playing a bass drum stroke on the “off” beat with equal emphasis to the “on” beats. It is in my humble opinion one of the most used variations you will hear in rock,pop and hip hop music.

You will hear this and the following 5 bass drum variation on hundreds of 8th Note rock and pop grooves, Quarter note grooves and Sixteenth note grooves.

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X

Left Hand/Snare Drum

X X

Right Foot/Bass Drum

X X X

Left Foot/Hi Hat Pedal


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Here we play the two bass drum hits on both the 1 + and 3 +



1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X


X X X X



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1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X


X X X




Here we don’t play the bass drum on beat 3, but instead move it to the + of 3. To start with this will probably feel strange so take it easy and slowly and count out aloud to help ensure you get the correct co-ordination.


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1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X


X X




We get another syncopated beat.

This beat is the beat used in the song Miss Jackson by Outkast. It is what gives it that cool little funky feel ☺


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1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X


X X X




This and the next variation are starting to get more “funky” as we play more bass drum strokes on the off beat


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1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X


X X X X




This may be a bit advanced for you at this stage but I thought I would point this out to you with this variation you are being to get into the area of rhythmic illusions. You see the bass drum on the + of 4 followed by the bass drum on the one gives the sense that the bass drum part has moved backward by one 8th note.

To know where you are with this groove you have to count hard so that you keep the snare drum hits solid on the 2 and 4 which provide the core reference for this groove else you will drift and end up feeling that the true first beat on the bass drum is on the + of 4 and a train wreck of a groove will arrive for you and the band

5.1.7 Snare Drum Syncopation

Now it is not just the bass drum we can move from its “normal” place if we where to play the snare drum on the “+” of four as follows we would be creating a syncopated beat too.


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713 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Snare Drum V1

714 - 90BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Snare Drum V1

The snare would now fall on an off beat and that is another common syncopation. The movement of the snare drum to the + of four was most famously used by Clyde Stubbefield on the drum part of the James Brown Classic “Coldsweat”. He does lots of other things too but this is a real signature part of this groove.

715 - Coldsweat Groove

Chad Smith, also, uses a lot of snare drum syncopation. Songs like Californication and Under the Bridge.

Here is a modern use of syncopation on the song Clocks by Coldplay. Here rather than the bass drum moving too much the snare is played on beats 1, 2+ and 4. The general tempo is quite fast but here I have played it slower and then faster

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right

Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X


X X



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1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Right

Hand/Hi Hat

X X X X X X X X


X X X


X X


716 - Clocks by Coldplay beat played at 60BPM

717 - Clocks by Coldplay beat played at 120BPM

You will hear syncopated beats in lots and lots of music sometimes in a very subtle manner and sometimes much more explicitly.

Syncopation can move on from here which I cover a bit later.

5.2 Syncopation in other drum beat styles

5.2.1 Bass Drum Variations in a Quarter Note Beat

Above, I introduced you to the concept of syncopation with the bass drum but only within an 8th note rock and pop beat. Well, here is a good example of bass drum syncopation from the classic rock song “All Right Now” By Free, however, this is a quarter note beat song.

Note how the right hand only plays the hi hat on the 4 on beats of 1 2 3 and 4. and not on the off beats.

The standard beat is as follows in the intro, verse and chorus:


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718 - All Right Now main beat

However, in some places Simon Kirke plays this groove variation by playing extra bass drum beats between the quarter note beats:

719 - All Right Now main beat variation

5.2.2 Bass Drum Variations in a 16th Note Beats

If you remember in the 16th note ballard beat section I mentioned the song “Seeman” by Rammstein.

This is a good example of a 16th note ballard song that uses syncopation I have put the drum tab for the song “Seeman” by Rammstein below

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X X


— — — — — — — —

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X X X


— — — — — — — —


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If you listen to the song or look below you will see the bass drum moves around and away from the main quarter note beats of 1 2 3 4 and onto other off beat 16th notes.

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X X X X


— — — — — — — —

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X X X


— — — — — — — —

720 - Seeman 16th Note Syncopated Groove

Now if you haven’t already guessed you can do this with any of the beats in this book.


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5.3 Advanced Hand and Foot Syncopation

In all of the syncopation examples above, the right hand and right foot play the stroke at the same time. This is pretty easy as your right hand and foot (and your left hand and foot) are strongly connected together.

Now, to carry on with syncopating your beats we have to learn to do what I call is a Single Stroke Rolls between your hand and feet.

And being able to do this will allow you to play all the great beats that you hear and have probably always wanted to play.

In a nutshell, it will make you grooves groove and make you a much funky drummer even when you are playing non funk drum beats ☺

For your ongoing development as a drummer it is very important that you practice single stroke rolls between your hands and feet.

Why ?

Because that is how you will be able to play more complex syncopated rhythms as you progress and if you do and begin to make, what at first can feel quite hard then over time it will get much easier.

First here is a single stroke roll between you hands and feet.

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X

Right foot on the bass drum

X X X X

801 - Single Stroke roll between hands and feet

As a beginner I am afraid that this will feel very uncomfortable (if not very very uncomfortable. It took me a long time to get this OK and even now it still feels odd at times. The reason is that your right hand and foot are very connected by your brain and want to hit down together.

It is the old rubbing your tummy patting your head exercise

Like I have said a lot already, start very slowly and only when you are playing it correctly and accurately start to get faster.


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Now the next stage and to help you to get faster is the technique I use:

Traditional Count

1 e + &


Hand strokes down

Hand strokes up

Hand strokes down

Hand strokes up

Right foot on the bass drum

Foot raises up Foot strokes down

Foot raises up Foot strokes down

Basically as my hand goes down my foot comes up, ready to play the next stroke and then as my foot goes down on the next stroke my hand comes up again ready to play the next stroke.

My hand and foot, in effect, are cycling round each other.

Now, within one beat that is split into 16th notes you can move your bass drum around as follows:

5.3.1 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 1

Traditional Count

1 e + &


X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X


— — — —

This you will hear in hundreds of songs on the first beat. Learn this and you will use it forever, it is a great way of laying down a great grooving beat.


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Traditional Count

1 e + &


X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X


— — — —


Traditional Count

1 e + &


X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X


— — — —

Chad Smith uses this bass drum syncopation on beat 3 and 4 of the song “Give it Away”


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Traditional Count

1 e + &


X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X


— — — —


Traditional Count

1 e + &


X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X X


— — — —


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Now here are the four most common syncopated bass drum groove rhythms I know and use:

5.3.6 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 1

The first variation and in particular the first beat is probably one of the most used, as you can see the first beat uses the variation 1 from above and then is a normal 8th note rock beat.

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X


— — — — — — — —

802 - 60 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V1



This uses variation 1 and then you add other bass drum strokes and move them onto other off beats. In this case, the + of 2.

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X


— — — — — — — —




This uses variation 1, I told you it was used a lot and then you add other bass drum strokes and move them onto other off beats. In this case, the + of 2 and the + of 3, and we don’t play the bass drum on beat 3. This is now starting to get seriously grooving and funky.

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X


— — — — — — — —




Again, this uses variation 1, but here I use variation 3 for beats 3 and 4. Actually, this is the “Give it Away” drum beat by Chad Smith ☺. Get this up to speed and you will be doing really well and grooving

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X X X


— — — — — — — —



Here are some songs that use 16th note bass drum syncopations:

Anastasia – “Left outside alone”

Pearl Jam – “Alive”

Chad Smith – “Give it away”, “Under the bridge”

Nivana "Smells Like Teen Spirt"

5.4 Some final words on Syncopation

Remember that the examples above are common grooves that I hear in songs all the time as you develop and become more comfortable you can make up you own beats, grab a piece of paper and just make some beats up and then just play what you have made up for a few minutes till you make it groove

Because you are only limited by your imagination in putting more complex beats together.


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6.1 Disco/Dance 16th Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing

Now, listening to 16th note based songs you will notice that a lot of them have the hi hat opening and closing in them.

This gives what many drummers call the, (And I kid you not here) the “pea soup” sound.

It is this sound coupled with the “4 on the floor” groove that to me gives this dance beat its very particular disco/dance sound.

This is really moving into intermediate to advanced drumming, but as the opening and closing of the hi-hat is so common and sounds so good, I thought I would include it here for your information because wasn’t something I couldn’t leave out. If this is a little too much too quick then just move on and come back later ☺.

To me the opening and closing of the hi hat with you left foot is a core drumming skill that once you have mastered you will be able to use in many other musical styles and grooves including jazz, soul and funk.

So on to the technical part of how to actually do that:

To show the opening of the hi hats in the tabs below, the symbol “O” short for Open is used (sort of understandable and simple I hope, as things should be for us drummers☺) When you see the open symbol “O” just lift you left foot up and then hold it to when you see the next “X” symbol, which means close the hi hats together.

This is how it sounds with an open hi hats

307 - Slow Basic 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat beat 4+

And here it is played faster

308 - Fast Basic 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat beat 4+

6 Using the hi-hat to groove up your grooves


PAGE 79

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 E + &



X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


X — — — — — — —

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &



X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


— — — — — — O


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By doing this you are hitting the hi hat when it is open with your right and then left hand and then by closing it, this “chokes” off the top cymbal ringing and creates what us drummers call the “pea soup” sound.

Take this very slowly at first. It is a bit of co-ordination challenge to start with so remember

“To get there twice as fast, start twice as slow”

OK ?

Now 16th note dance songs examples with lots of opening and closing hi-hats include Fatboy Slim, Faithless, Moby, Goldfrapp, and Franz Ferdinand.

The next stage in using opening and closing hi-hats and something that is used a lot in dance music is to open the hi-hats on the “off-beat” that is the “+” of the beat as follows:

309 - Basic 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat on off-beat and closing on 2 and 4

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X (Right hand move to the snare drum

X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


X O X O


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X (Right hand moves to the snare drum)

X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


X — O X — O —

6.2 8th Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing

There are many 8th note rock and pop beat examples that do this too. A couple I heard the other day were “You Stupid Girl” by Garbage and also “Laura” by The Scissor Sisters.

The classis Arthera Franklin funk song “Rock Steady” with the great Bernard Purdie on drums uses the “pea soup” hi-hat opening and closing in lots of place. You should listen to this song as Bernard’s playing on this song is truly sublime.

Also, all the drummer of James Brown used hi-hat openings, generally they would open the hi-hat on the

Here is a 8th note beat with some pea soup:

104 - Basic 8th note beat with pea soup on the “and” of beat 4

This is actually the beat from the Emmien song “Stan” that I introduced earlier in the 8th note rock and pop beat section.

I will leave this with one last example in the Eminien “Stan” groove there are three bass drum hits.


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103 - Basic 8th note rock beat – Stan Groove

Also, you can open and close the hi hat as follows with your left foot

105 - 8th note rock beat - Stan Groove with pea soup on 4+

The Moby albums of “18” and “Play” use lots of hi hat opening and closing, in particular, the song Natural Blues on the album Play.

Lastly, the drummers of James Brown and the drummers of Motown all use the hi hat to add to the great grooves either in very complex ways or very simple ways. Again, here I’ll point you to the “Coldsweat” groove. Here Clyde opens and closes the hi-hat on the 2nd and 4th beats just about throughout the whole song and coupled with the snare and bass drum syncopations it makes one of the greatest grooving drum beats ever. He, also, does the same with my favourite James Brown song "Sex Machine".

I can only advise you to listen, copy and play it to learn how to play great grooving drum beats and get your audience dancing!! ☺.


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7.1 Expressing yourself as a musician

First up fills are a real fun part of music and being a drummer, they are the part of a song that as the drummer you can really help transfer the emotions of the song to your audience by building anticipation (with your other band members) starting to play louder or softer, changing the main beat and then releasing it with a great fill

So OK, with that said I’ll show you some common fills that have been used thousands of times in thousands of songs!!!!

Who every said that drummers and musicians weren’t inventive ☺

Technically fills, (to me anyhow), are where we play more (or sometimes less) strokes within the context of keeping time in a song to “better” the song.

Before going on you really must take on board the concept that if you play a fill you must stay in time otherwise the groove and foundation of song, for the other band members and audience will be lost. If you lose time in the fill things can go horribly wrong for everybody. This usually happens when you try to play a fill that is too complicated for your abilities. A common problem us drummers all have!!!

To start with we will keep the fills simple from a sticking view point.

We are going to use the single stroke roll sticking that you learnt in playing a 16th note beat.

However, just because a fill is simple from a sticking view point doesn’t mean that its impact is and can be any less than something much more complicated.

Later, I’ll show you, a great way of keeping that timing and foundation that is used by all the top drummers to keep time in fills, but for now we need to focus on the basic sticking of fills to get us rocking and rolling here.

Well to get you into this, here is an example of a fill you will have heard many many times before and probably 1000’s of time before.

7 How to play drum fills


PAGE 84

901 - Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill around the toms

This is an example of a bar of 8th note rock time 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + followed by a “fill” of 16th note 1e+&a 2e+&a 3e+&a 4e+&a

So now then, before we get too complicated let start nice and simple first!!!

By developing the ability to play this a piece at a time we can build up to it.

Fill Number 1

First here is a standard 8th note rock beat. (I have written it out with 16th note subdivision as you will see why in a second)

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X

Left Hand on the snare

X

Right Foot on the bass drums

X


— — — — — — — —

Now without changing the position of our hands we are going to starting on the count of 3 to play a single stroke roll (just like as if you where play a 16th note dance beat)


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X


X X X X


X


— — — — — — — —

902 - Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on snare and hi-hat

Now you have a go.

And congratulations on playing your first fill!!!!

Fill Number 2

The next step is to move this fill around the drum kit.

Play the 8th note rock beat on 1 + 2 + from fill number 1 and then when you get to the 3rd beat move your right hand up onto the high tom and then follow it with your left hand to play a single stroke roll on the high tom.

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &

Right Hand on the high tom

X X X X

Left Hand on the high tom

X X X X


X


— — — — — — — —


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903 – 60 BPM Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on high tom on beats 3 and 4

903a - 90 BPM Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on high toms on beats 3 and 4

OK I hope that you can now see what I am doing here by increasing the variations and combinations of the different drums you will create different sounds for your fills.

Fill Number 3

From this basic idea of mixing 16th note single stroke fills into you beats you can play the 16th note fill for the whole bar and you get probably the most played fill of all time by playing a 16th note single stroke roll around the kit.

So play 3 bars of time with a standard 8th note rock beat

And then every fourth bar play 16th note single stroke rolls around the kit as follows

1e+& on the high tom

2e+& on the middle tom

3e+& on the low tom

4e+& on the low tom

And here is how it sounds:

904 – 60BPM Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars with a 16th note fill around the toms

904a - 120BPM Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars with a 16th note fill around the toms

Fill Number 4

Now, remember how I have sometimes said less is more while here it is in action.

We can start to mix and match the playing of 16th notes and 8th notes throughout the bar of the fill


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What we can do is actually to not “fill” in all the 16th notes and miss some out

Here is an example:

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &

Right Hand on the high tom

X X X X


X X


X


— — — — — — — —

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X


X X


X


— — — — — — — —

And here is how it sounds

905 - Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars and then Grade 1 fill

Here we use the left hand to fill in between the right hand that continues to play the 8th notes. By continuing to play 8th notes with the right hand you will hopefully keep you timing and groove going in the fill.


PAGE 88

I call this the "Grade 1" fill as it was the first drum fill I ever learnt when I started to do my drum gradings.

Actually, this is a good time to make the point (again) about keeping time in fills. It is very easy to get carried away and try to play too many strokes in your fills and obviously the more strokes you play the longer it will take unless you play them faster enough and if you can’t, you either play the fill wrong or you change the timing of the beat by slowing it down to play the fill.

So at the beginning, make sure that you play the main beat at a speed that you can play the fill in otherwise you may start to get into the very very bad habit of slowing the groove down during your fills.

The last thing with fills is that you can use any drum or cymbal to play your fill on and so as you get more comfortable with the timing and sticking of your fills and here is an example of my "Grade 1" fill played around the tom toms and finishing on some cymbals on beats 4 and 4+.

906 - 8th Note Rock beat with various drums and cymbals fill

7.2 Double Stroke and Paradiddle based fills

As part of 16th Note disco beats, I have introduced you to single stroke rolls, and how you can use them to play that beat or as fills. Now, is the time to introduce you to 2 other simple sticking patterns that you can use to play either beats or fills. They are the double stroke roll and the parradiddle.

7.2.1 Double stroke roll

First up the double stroke roll.

The double stroke roll is two strokes with your right hand followed by two with your left hand

R R L L

Here is an example:


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Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &

Right Hand on the middle tom

X X X X


X X X X


X


— — — — X — — —

I play my bass drum and hi-hat on the quarter note beats to help keep time going.

A good count to get you going is to say out loud "Mama Dada" Try it and see ☺ . Also, you can go to my website www.learn-to-play-drums.com and hear me counting it out for you.

Now as the sticking here is the same as a single stroke roll you can play the same 16th note fills within quarter note and 8th note rock songs by play

So play 3 bars of time with a standard 8th note rock beat

And then every fourth bar play 16th note double stroke rolls around the kit as follows


using the sticking RR LL



3e+& on the low tom


4e+& on the low tom



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If you start on the high tom and are leading with you right hand the fill with flow naturally left to right.

The variations you can play with the double stroke roll are many around the kit, you can split the hands between different drums, you can keep the right hand on the low toms and move your left hand between the snare, hi hat, high and middle tom.

Now, when you write this on paper (our type it into a word processor) it all seems so simple to play doubles, however, as you develop and want to get better and faster you will realise that you really have to work at you doubles as you weaker left hand will not be able to play the two LL strokes as fast as your right hand.

The trick as always is start slow and slowly speed up but making sure that all four strokes sound even and at the same speed. Please don't get into the bad habit of play the two RR fast and the two LL slower else it will sound uneven and lopsided.

The great Buddy Rich (probably one of the greatest drummers ever) practised his double strokes the whole of his life.

The double stroke roll is the foundation of a number of other rolls and rudiments (e.g. 5 stroke, 7 stroke and 9 stroke rolls), where you finish with an accented stroke on the down beat to carry on with the main beat

Accents: This little sign below " > " means to play the stroke louder than the others, to do this raise you wrist up higher than normal and sort of flick you hand down. This puts more speed into you hand and the drum stick and makes the stroke louder when it hits the drum.

The sticking for a 5 stroke roll is

>

R R L L R



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>

R R L L R R L


>

R R L L R R L L R

You can use 5 strokes as one beat fills like so

Play an 8th note beat and then on beat 4 play a double stroke roll and the last R will naturally fall on the first beat of the next bar

Play an 8th Note beat and then beat 4 play a 5 stroke roll as follows

>

R R L L R R and back to play a 8th Note beat

4 e + & 1 e + &

7.2.2 Paradiddle based fills

Now for the paradiddle.

The paradiddle is a combination of a single stroke roll and a double stroke roll

right, left, right, right and then reversed to left, right, left left sticking

R L R R L R L L

The paradiddle is great at making you work your weaker left hand

Here is an example:


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Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &

Right Hand on the middle tom

X X X X


X X X X


X


— — — 0 X — — —

I play my bass drum and hi-hat on the quarter note beats to help keep time going.

You can count paradiddles in the same way as double stroke rolls by counting out loud.

In this case, you count

Pa ra did dle Pa ra did dle

R L R R L R L L

1 e + & 2 e + &

Again, if you start on the high tom and are leading with you right hand the fill with flow naturally left to right.

The variations you can play with the paradiddle are many around the kit, you can split the hands between different drums, you can keep the right hand on the low toms and move your left hand between the snare, hi hat, high and middle tom.

So again to practice, play 3 bars of time with a standard 8th note rock beat and then every fourth bar play paradiddle rolls around the kit as follows


using the sticking R L R R


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using the sticking L R L L

3e+& on the low tom

using the sticking R L R R

4e+& on the low tom

using the sticking L R L L

The other great thing about paradiddles is they can be used to play the main beat/groove too, if you play a paradiddle sticking to an 8th Note beat, as follows:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

R L R R L R L L

To play this as a beat/groove play all on the strokes on the hi-hat, but on the beats 2 and 4 move your hand down to the snare drum and either leave it there for the next stroke but play the second stoke a bit quieter or move it straight back

Now, if you play this as follows

Here is an example:

Traditional Count

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Hi hat Right hand

Left Hand

Right Hand

Left hand

Right Hand

Left Hand

Snare Right Hand

Left Hand


X


— — — O X — — —

This is a great exercise in moving your hands from the hi-hat to the kit and back again and in particular your left hand.


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Now, if you have got yourself a practise pad single, double and pardiddle stickings are great to practise to help you hands and mind practise this stickings

I like to turn on the radio or put my ipod on and "play" these stickings along to the song, either to the main beat or when the drummer is playing fills.

If the song is too fast to keep up with to start with play half as slow, i.e. as these are 16th note fills play them as 8th note fills.

The good thing about playing doubles and paradiddles to music is that it will help you keep you right and left hand balanced and even as you start to get faster.

Now, a wonderful thing about paradiddles is you can move the single strokes and the double strokes about to give different patterns to create different beats and fills:

1 e + & 2 e + &

L L R L R R L R

Here is an inverted paradiddle I like to play

1 e + & 2 e + &

R L R R L R R L

If you play the right hand on the bell of the ride cymbal and the left on the snare, you will start to notice that each version of the paradiddle has a signature sound from the right hand playing.

From the basic paradiddle pattern you can invent yourself lots of other versions. For example, you can take notes out, combine the feet and hands, add accents the list is pretty end less

And now for something else which is very important if you play the drums. That is to make sure you play safely.


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8.1.1 Protect your hearing!! Use Earplugs

Drums are a very loud and a very physical instrument to play that make very loud sounds across a wide frequency range.

From 50Hz to 400Mhz actually

Now without telling you the blinding obvious excessive exposure to loud noises will damage your hearing which could leave you partially deaf and hard of hearing

Think of Bob from Artillery in the film Good Morning Vietnam !!! and possible with Tinnitus.

I am actually aware of my tinnitus this happened to me by going to very loud disco’s, clubs and live concerts in my teenager years and early twenties, and not actually from playing the drums but, of course, the same concept applies as effectively I subjected myself to loud sounds without proper protection

If you need anymore convincing on protecting your hearing look up articles on Morgan Rose of Sevendust in Modern Drummer, as suffering for your art is one thing but destroying your body in the process of drumming is going too far unless you want to be in discomfort in your older years with deafness and ringing sounds in your ears.

Greg Bissonette is a big fan of using earplugs and isolation headphones as you will have see in this picture.

8 Playing safely


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The isolation headphones he is wearing act to stop the very loud sounds and noise form this wonderful drum kit getting fully to his ears.

When I practice with my band I always use ear defenders and sometimes I wear ear plugs in side of my ear defenders too.

Yes that is right they are things that you use to protect your hearing when using power tools, for the DIYers who maybe reading this.

And I don’t what to scare you or overstate the risks at all because there is risk is everything in life but if you have an acoustic drum set and even an electronic kit with loud speakers/headphones

I can’t stress this enough:

Drumming without taking sensible

precautions can damage your hearing and

health. So please you have been told and warned!!!!

Sorry to shout but you need to be sensible OK, and forewarned is forearmed.

Apart from protecting your hearing here is some other advice to stop you possibly hurting yourself whilst playing.


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8.1.2 Sit up straight

You body is built to move and when you sit down in the same place for a long time you place pressure on your lower back as the weight of you upper body is transferred down your spine. Therefore to protect your back and in particular your lower back. I recommend you do the following:

1) Get a good solid drum stool/seat with lots of soft padding

2) Get one that has a back support. This will prompt you to sit up straight

3) When you practise don’t sit too long in the same position. I would suggest no more than about 15 to 20 minutes after that stand up and GENTLY stretch you back off by stretching forward, backwards and side ways.

4) Learn to fidget. Move about and around in your seat. Lift yourself up off the seat slightly and turn you hips backwards and forwards to again GENTLY stretch your lower back.

5) Set up your kit ergonomically e.g. to fit you and your movements and NOT the other way round. This is really common sense, but it amazes me to see so many drummers at kits that do not fit them and they have to really reach and stretch to get to various drums. You must, set your kit up with consideration to the natural angles of your body. Here are some generally tips that I try to follow:

a. Have your seat at a height so that your thighs are parallel to the floor and so there is a right angle between your thigh and lower leg;

b. Have the drum seat at the correct height for you and have one with a lower back support;

c. Place the snare drum so it sits comfortable between your legs. The height of the snare drum should be so that your arms with sticks in your hands are parallel to the floor or slightly angled down when striking the drum;


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d. Place the bass drum and hi hat pedals in line with your legs and feet. This may mean have you bass drum not facing directly away from you but at an angle;

e. Have you hi-hat in a very comfortable place. This is because you will play the hi-hat the most and so it must be the most comfortable position for you not to strain to reach it;

f. Have your tom toms at a comfortable distance so you again do not have to unduly stretch or twist to reach them; and

g. Remember you don’t have to set your kit up the way you see lots of other kits set up if that doesn’t feel right. Play around with placing the hi-hat, bass drum etc to make the kit fit you and what feels good to you. I mean you wouldn’t buy and wear a pair of wrong fitting jeans would you ☺

6) Use the natural motions and angles of your body to play, if it feels hard and uncomfortable it is probably because it is wrong; and

7) Lastly, and I can’t stress this enough if it hurts then STOP it and take a rest.


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I hope that my e-book has met your expectations and made learning the 7 most common drum beats easy and straight forward.

It is important that you understand that you can take the basic beats that I have put here in the e-book and learn them nice and quickly, but it is the feel with which you play them that will make them groove and feel good and that is when the magic and fun of being a drummer comes to you.

With regards to these 7 basis beats please don’t be fooled by their “simpleness”. The 7 basic beats are simple but it doesn’t mean they are simplistic in a musical context.

As such you could spend a life time as a drummer making these beats the foundation of great music and do little else other than work on your touch, feel and groove.

The reason I say this is for me it is very important that being a drummer is not a solo activity and I truly believe that to get the most out of being a drummer you must find other musicians to play with. Some of the greatest fun in being a drummer is when I am playing with my band and being musical.

Talk to your friends to see if they play the guitar or keyboards etc or know of any others that do, ask them if they would like to come and jam with you for some fun.

At the start, we are all very shy about playing with good friends let alone strangers but please please make the effort because the rewards of playing music with others is just so very great.

Reach out and you will find other people that will want to play with you and that is when you will learn lots and a lot more than from any one book on drumming, this one included ☺

This is why I put this quote at the front of this e-book:

“"For doing the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them"

9 Some Final Words


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In a nutshell, you can only learn by doing things

And the drums are really no different!!

I truly believe one of the quickest ways to help you learn how and to improve your playing of the drums is playing with other musicians.

You see in the end you’ll learn by practicing what you don’t know and by playing what you do know with other musicians

So trust me you will only become a better drummer and also have more fun by playing the drums with other musicians

Hopefully from this e-book you will see how I have introduced you to the beats but with lots of reference to the songs and music that use these beats.

Too many drum books to me just present lots of practice sticking drills, these have a place in any learning regime but only a smallish part.

To grow and learn as a drummer you need to play along with the music you love, to learn different musical styles and to feel the structure of songs.

You learn and will learn by listening, when I first to started to play I used to read a lot and many drummers would (and still do) talk about “learning with your ears” I was a little confused at first but now I think this means that by listening to what others are doing you can learn yourself by copying them and so improving yourself. Well, that’s my humble opinion ☺

You see to me by having a musical knowledge from listening and playing along to songs you will be able to see how drums fit into the whole of a song and how they contribute to hopefully the great music that you are going to make in the future ☺.

A great quote I love here is “Many drummers think they drum along to a song rather than being a part of a song”

Think for a moment, of what say the Beatles would be like without the drumming of Ringo Starr of the Beatles or Dave Grohl of Nirvana. There drum parts were part of the fabric of the song. They were in general not large and flashy or difficult to play but were a foundation part of the song itself because they were played with touch, feel and groove in partnership with the other parts of the song.


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It maybe that I, myself, am more a groove drummer rather than having fantastic “chops” but I truly believe you need to be a musician first who as one of their skills includes being able to play the drums.

In becoming a drummer, you are also joining a wonderful family. Drummers are some of the most helpful and friendliest group of people around so if you have any questions don’t be a stranger and please email at [email protected]. Or find other drum websites and forums and go from there.

Lastly, learning to play the drums is a journey that never ends. When you start to play and fall in love with this wonderful instrument you will always want to improve and get better. That is what is such a great thing about drumming because from 6 to 60 and beyond you will always want to continue to improve and learn some more.

So with those profound words I shall say goodbye, take care and I hope to meet up with you someday.

Kind Regards

Rob


PAGE 102

Here are all the drum tabs for all the main beats above on separate pages so it is easy to print them out and put them on front of yourself whilst you learn them

10.1 8th Note Rock and Pop Beat

10 Appendix 1

Traditional Count

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X


— — — — — — — —


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10.2 Motown Train Beat

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X X X


X X


— — — — — — — —


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10.3 Quarter Note Rock Beat

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X X X


X X X X


— — — — — — — —


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10.4 Slow 16th Note Ballard Beat

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X


— — — — — — — —


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10.5 Rammstein “Seeman” Syncopation example of a 16th Note Ballard Song

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X X X X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X


X X X


— — — — — — — —


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10.6 Fast 16th note disco and dance beat

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X (Right hand moves to hit the snare drum)

X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X X


— — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &



X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X X


— — — — — — — —


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10.7 Fast 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat and closing on beat 4+

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &



X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


X — — — — — — —


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &



X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


— — — — — — O


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10.8 Fast 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat and closing on beats 2 and 4

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


X X X (Right hand move to the snare drum

X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


X O X O


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Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &



X

Left Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Right Foot X


— — — — — — O


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10.9 6/8 Blues Beats

1 2 3 4 5 6


X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare X


X


— — — — — —


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10.10 Basic Shuffle Beat

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e


X X X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X


— — — — — — — —


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10.11 Basic Jazz Beat

1 2 e 3 4 e

Right Hand on the ride cymbal

X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare

X X


X X


O X — O X —


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10.12 Feet for the basic Jazz Beat

1 2 e 3 4 e

Right foot

X X

Left Foot

X X


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10.13 Blank Drum Tabs for copying and making your own beats up

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &


Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot


Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &


Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot


Photocopy this page and then just make up drum beats


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10.14 Listing of Sound Files and Cross References

100 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 120bpm....................................................................................................................................14 100 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 120bpm....................................................................................................................................16 101 - Basic 8th note rock beat count .............................................................................................................................................17 102 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 60 bpm .....................................................................................................................................17 201 - Basic quarter note rock beat count .....................................................................................................................................23 202 - Basic quarter note rock beat ................................................................................................................................................23 301 - 16th note beat count traditional ............................................................................................................................................27 302 - 16th note beat count modern.................................................................................................................................................27 303 - Slow 16th Note ballard beat...................................................................................................................................................27 304 - 16th Note Disco/Dance Beat...................................................................................................................................................30 305 - Single Stroke Roll...................................................................................................................................................................31 305a - 120 BPM - Single stroke roll alternate drum...................................................................................................................31 306 - 16th note four on the floor beat.............................................................................................................................................34 401 - 12 bar blues chord progression............................................................................................................................................38 402 – 120 BPM Basic blues 6/8 beat..............................................................................................................................................39 403 - Triplet Count – Traditional..................................................................................................................................................42 404 - Triplet Count - Word............................................................................................................................................................42 405 - Triplet roll on the snare drum .............................................................................................................................................43 406 - Triplet roll on the snare drum with feet .............................................................................................................................44 407 - Breaking the Girl ...................................................................................................................................................................45 501 - Shuffle Beat Count.................................................................................................................................................................46 502 – 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat................................................................................................................................................46 503 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat Hi-hat Pattern........................................................................................................................47 503a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat Hi-hat Pattern....................................................................................................................47 504 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and bass only ..............................................................................................................47 504a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and bass only ..........................................................................................................48 505 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and snare only ............................................................................................................48 505a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and snare only........................................................................................................48 601 – 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat.....................................................................................................................................................52 601a – 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat –Heavy Snare and bass.........................................................................................................52 602 - Basic Jazz Beat Count...........................................................................................................................................................52 603 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat Ride Cymbal Pattern.................................................................................................................53 604 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat ride and bass only.......................................................................................................................53 604a - 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat ride and bass only ..................................................................................................................54 605 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat........................................................................................................................................................54 606 - Basic Jazz Beat with just feet playing .................................................................................................................................54 701 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V1...................................................................................................................59 702 - 120BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V1 ................................................................................................................59 703 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V2...................................................................................................................60 704 - 120BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V2 ................................................................................................................60 705 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V3...................................................................................................................61 706 - 120BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V3 ................................................................................................................61 707 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V4...................................................................................................................62 708 - 120BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V4 ................................................................................................................62 709 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V5...................................................................................................................63 710 - 120BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V5 ................................................................................................................63 711 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V6...................................................................................................................64 712 - 120BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Bass Drum V6 ................................................................................................................64 713 - 60BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Snare Drum V1 ................................................................................................................65 714 - 90BPM – 8th Note Rock Beat - Snare Drum V1 ................................................................................................................65 715 - Coldsweat Groove..................................................................................................................................................................65 716 - Clocks by Coldplay beat played at 60BPM........................................................................................................................66 717 - Clocks by Coldplay beat played at 120BPM......................................................................................................................66 718 - All Right Now main beat.......................................................................................................................................................67 719 - All Right Now main beat variation .....................................................................................................................................67


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720 - Seeman 16th Note Syncopated Groove................................................................................................................................68 801 - Single Stroke roll between hands and feet..........................................................................................................................69 802 - 60 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V1..............................................................................................74 803 - 120 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V1............................................................................................74 804 - 60 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V2..............................................................................................75 805 - 120 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V2............................................................................................75 806 - 60 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V3..............................................................................................76 807 - 120 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V3............................................................................................76 808 - 60 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V4..............................................................................................77 809 - 120 BPM - Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- V4............................................................................................77 307 - Slow Basic 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat beat 4+ ........................................................................................78 308 - Fast Basic 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat beat 4+ .........................................................................................78 309 - Basic 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat on off-beat and closing on 2 and 4....................................................80 104 - Basic 8th note beat with pea soup on the “and” of beat 4 .................................................................................................81 103 - Basic 8th note rock beat – Stan Groove...............................................................................................................................82 105 - 8th note rock beat - Stan Groove with pea soup on 4+.....................................................................................................82 901 - Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill around the toms ...................................................................................................84 902 - Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on snare and hi-hat..............................................................................................85 903 – 60 BPM Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on high tom on beats 3 and 4 .............................................................86 903a - 90 BPM Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on high toms on beats 3 and 4 .......................................................86 904 – 60BPM Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars with a 16th note fill around the toms..................................................................86 904a - 120BPM Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars with a 16th note fill around the toms ...........................................................86 905 - Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars and then Grade 1 fill .........................................................................................................87 906 - 8th Note Rock beat with various drums and cymbals fill ................................................................................................88

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