The feet are walking, right, left, right, left, on the bass drum and stepped hi hat all the way though, until the last line, where it’s left foot hi hat on every beat. Follow the sticking (R L R L) for the hands on the snare drum. Either play as seperate...
The open hi hats can be seen in the sheet music where the hi hat has a circle around it. All the beats have open hi hats on the “and” of the beat (i.e. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +). These beats are a good introduction to playing open hi hats in general, and...
This drum grooves sheet is good for learning to improvise in a samba funk style. It was initially written for a drum lesson as a rough guide to the kind of things that could be improvised with during a Grade 8 Rockschool song from the 2006-2012 syllabus (Sampa Samba),...
Right handers should play ‘Right Left Right Left’ in a continuous pattern with the hands. Bring your left arm over to the left so both hands can play on the hi hat comfortably and without crossing the arms. The right hand would play the snare drum. Left...
A bass drum skip beat is where the bass drum is played in between the high hats. The skip beats create syncopation, and is often used in funk drumming. This sheet has a useful selection of different bass drum skip beat combinations. You could either treat the sheet as...
Skip beats are intermediate and above drum beats where the snare drum skips in between a regular 8th note hi hat ostinato. The word syncopation is often used to describe the sound these kind of drum beats. Skip beats can be heard in many styles of music, including...
Here is a selection of beginner drum grooves in a 6/8 time signature. After practicing through the sheet at least once, try and work on playing with a metronome at various speeds. You may need to work on one bar or one line at a time if you need to practice some parts...
In this reference sheet, you will learn about Repeat Bars, Alternative Endings (1st time bar, 2nd time bar etc) and various other repeat markings that you will encounter reading drum notation / drum sheet music. Related: How to read musical signposts – CODA and...
Segno (The Sign) Coda (CODA) Dal Segno (D.S.) Go to the sign Da Capo (D.C.) Go back to the beginning D.S. al Coda Go to the sign, then follow ‘To Coda’ marking D.C. al Coda Go to the beginning, then follow ‘To Coda’ marking D.S. al fine Go to...
This is an open hi hat groove practice exercise with short drum fills every 4 bars to keep it interesting to play. There are a few ways to play the open hi hat. You can open it quite wide and hit on the top or the edge, or open it a couple of cm wide for somewhere in...
