Category: Drums

Computer Games Music – PDF Ebook – Drum Sheet Music [includes Drum Loops Pack]

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Also available for Guitar, Bass, and Ukulele

Full drum sheet music for 9 computer music songs transcribed from the MIDI drum loops used on the album ‘Computer Games Music’ by TL Music Lessons.

Also includes drum loops MIDI and Audio pack.

Audio on Spotify

About the Sheet Music

The drum sheet music has a wide range of ability levels from complete beginner (Canon in C), right up to grade 8 with some complicated syncopation at high speeds. All of the drum loops were created specifically for these songs, by me, a drummer! Hence, I tried to make the majority of the beats playable by a real drummer. I was able to transcribe and transpose most of the beats without altering them, but there were some that would need extra hands, such as the hand claps and clave polyrhythms, so these have been left out or modified where I thought appropriate.

I think this book would be usefuly for anyone wanting to enjoy playing drums along to music whilst reading drum sheet music at the same time. Whilst I can transcribe known songs, this was fun for me to do and release to you, without having to worry about copyright issues.

These could potentially be used as performance pieces in schools, or maybe even exams as a free choice piece if you ask an exam board. Feel completely free to use the audio as a backing track by downloading it from itunes or bandcamp etc and usin it to play along with.

Music makers and music producers can feel free to use the drum loops audio and midi as they wish. You may freely use them in your own compositions. School pupils may also use the drum loops pack as they wish for school projects or coursework – just ask your teacher if this is ok and within any guidelines.

About The Music

Last year I made an album of 10 songs to teach with, and created 6 ebooks for the instrument parts. This year, I made an album of 11 songs called ‘Computer Game Music’.

This year I exported the MIDI files from 8 of those songs, plus 3 new ones, and began adding synths to the MIDI in my music production software Abelton Live 9 to create music that I think would sound good in computer games. I found it quite easy, quick and enjoyable to do when I initially messed about with one of the songs for fun. I then decided to start the project, which only took about a month of spare time to create the new album of songs. I also added drums and bass guitar to the tracks to finish them off.

The drums were created by me in Abelton using the MIDI piano roll and a drum rack. I really enjoyed this! I then transcribed the drum loops into actual drum sheet music for people to learn to play along with the music if they wanted to.

The drum sheet music has a wide range of ability levels from complete beginner (Canon in C), right up to grade 8 with some complicated syncopation at high speeds. All of the drum loops were created specifically for these songs. I tried to make the majority of the beats playable by a real drummer. I was able to transcribe and transpose most of the beats without altering them, but there were some that would need extra hands, such as the hand claps and clave polyrhythms, so these have been left out or modified where I thought appropriate.

Music makers and music producers can feel free to use the drum loops audio and midi as they wish. You may freely use them in your own compositions. School pupils may also use the drum loops pack as they wish for school projects or coursework, if this is within the guidelines of the work.

I hope that the songs can be used by a range of abilities. I would say most or all ability levels would find challenges throughout the album, depending on which instrument you look at. They are all quite challenging in places.

I hope that the songs can be used by more advanced players. Initially the previous album of music was created for grades 1-3 (guitar and ukulele only), but now for this new one, I would say most or all ability levels would find challenges throughout the album, depending on which instrument you look at. They are all quite challenging in places.
I also hope that the songs can be used as backing tracks for performances, for example in schools, and possibly as part of marked school performances or maybe even as free choice pieces in grade exams.

I also hope that my students will enjoy listening to the album after getting to know the songs in their different style.

Whilst the songs have not been created for any particular computer game, I will try to get some of the music featured in actual games. I think they would work well with platform and retro type games.

HAIM uses Bass Drum, Toms and Rims to interesting effect in this supurb live music video

The drums in this video are towards the end of the song, but if you have time, watch it from the start because the drums have more effect when you’ve got into the song.

When you hear layered drums on recordings, this is a visual representation of how these types of sounds are acheived. What you see in the video is the actual audio you hear too, much to my suprise and delight because so many other music videos are usually mimed to a studio recorded song. After tentatively reading the comments for the video, it appears to be general consensus that this ‘live version’ is better than their other studio recorded version (later released), which to me is a reference to live music being the winner over studio production.

So, enjoy this video, in all it’s glory, of a truely live recording executed supurbly.

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(Premium) – Drum Book PDF – 10 drum solo performance pieces grade 1-3

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Audio Examples


download the audio examples for free here

Contents

10 Drum Solo Performance Pieces Grade 1-3

Pages

2. Contents
3. Introduction
4. Grade 1 Drum Solo 1
5. Grade 1 Drum Solo 2
6. Grade 1 Drum Solo 3
7. Grade 2 Drum Solo 1
8. Grade 2 Drum Solo 2
9. Grade 2 Drum Solo 3
10. Grade 3 Drum Solo 1
11. Grade 3 Drum Solo 2
12. Grade 3 Drum Solo 3
13. Grade 3 Drum Solo 4

This 1st Edition ebook was published in 2017 by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons.
Front Cover Artwork Template by RogueSkins. Modified by Theo Lawrence.
Front cover illustration by Rich Orr.

People that might find this book useful

  • Drum teachers can print the book or single sheets for their students
  • Drummers can teach themselves following on from a strong basic foundation in reading and playing
  • Drummers that need to perform for school or competition etc.
  • Building ideas for you own drum solos

Contents Highlights

The 10 pieces are performance pieces for drums, with no backing. They have elements of actual drum solos that you would perhaps find at grade 1-3, but they are extended to be about 1 minute each, so there is more of a mixture of grooves and beats too so that they can be performed without backing instruments and still be interesting.

About the book

The book is split into 3 pieces for each grade, with an extra one for the grade 3 level.

At the moment I teach a lot of primary school students. All of my school teaching is primary, and then I have some older students in the evenings. Some of the primary school students have completed the other books I have written so far at this level, and are ready for a new challenge, so I have prepared this for them. It will be ideal for some of them to perform at their school concerts, as it would for others around the world that download this.

This book will definitely provide new challenges to those that have only followed the first few drum books, because there is much more focus on drum fills. The other books were about 70% beats and 30% fills. This one is about 70% fills and non regular groove playing bits.

Final Thoughts

I really hope this ebook gives young players and novice older players the confidence to perform drum solos. I hope it gives them ideas for making their own solos too. Being good at any instrument is all about the confidence in knowing you can do something. I also hope that the focus on drum fills and drum solos in this ebook will help drummers in their Rockschool exams (other exam boards are available!), when they need to ‘develop’ or ‘cont. sim.’ or ‘drum solo’. I’ve seen drummers shut down at the sight of these things, and it’s vital to break through that. Good luck!

– Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons

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INFOGRAPHIC – Girls vs Boys stats for Guitar, Ukulele, Drums – TL Music Lessons 2017

Make of it what you will and feel free to use this for your own research projects. These are reals stats from all of my students, most of which are of primary school age, and some are high school and adult ages.

The stats are an open look at how many girls and boys tend to learn guitar, drums and ukulele. The aim of these stats really is to show that the numbers are either fairly equal, or not too far apart, despite the apparent unequal representation in the music industry.

8 beginners Jazz worksheets including bass drum and snare triplet patterns for comping ideas – FREE PDF

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There are 8 PDF files here with sheet music including Jazz drum beats. I thought rather than posting them seperately, I would rather group them all as one resource. They were created in 2010 near to when I started teaching and I used sibelius to make them.

Two of the sheets focus on the left foot hi hat and right hand cymbal ostinati.

Two of the sheets focus on only the left hand triplet based patterns used for comping.

Two of the sheets focus on the left hand snare drum and right foot bass drum, used for comping.

Two of the sheets (Full Jazz Grooves) bring it all together for 4 way coordination.

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Page 21 from ‘Grades 1-2 Beats & Fills Drum Book – Rock Pop Soul Funk’

Here is a free PDF of page 21 from the drum book ‘Grades 1-2 Beats & Fills Drum Book – Unit 1 – Rock Pop Soul Funk’.

The sheet music drum exercises are 2 bar loops containing drum beats with open hi hats that could fit into the styles of rock, pop, soul or funk, in a 6/8 time signature.

Once you are comfortable reading the drum beats in their repeating loops, try memorising the loop and continuing without reading it.

When teaching pupils that can cope with it, I also sometimes ask them to put emphasis on beats 1 and 4 to give it a blues feel.

5 Blues Drum Fills for the 12th Bar music stops

These are some quick drum fills we came up in a lesson with for use with ‘Mean Jumper Blues’ (Grade 2 Trinity Rock & Pop). There is one bar that asks you to make up a drum fill, which is at the end of a blue progression. Often the music stops on the 12th bar and this is where the drummer can put in a fill before repeating around the 12 bar groove.

Just a note on this, Grade 2 Trinity Rock & Pop has strong elements of Grade 3 Rockschool. It is a blend of Grade 2 and 3 really. The fills on this sheet could also be heard in Rockschool Grade 3 level, especially the final drum fill on the last line.

10 Reggae Drum Beats for Beginners

These drum beats are for any ability, even complete beginner. I would however recommend learning pop and rock first. For example: 10 Basic Rock Drum Beats.

Reggae beats often have an emphasis on beat 3 of the bar. Usually this is from the bass drum or bass drum and cross stick snare. Accents are often used on the hi hats to play louder on beat 2 and 4. In more advanced reggae hi hat work, they adopt a swing feel similar to blues, jazz or country. The cross stick snare is used instead of the full snare sometimes or much of the time if the song is fairly laid back and chilled, which it usually is with reggae! Normal snare hits, or hitting the snare head and rim simultaneously are used in reggae drum fills. You can see some reggae fills in the video below.

(Premium) – Grade 3-4 Drum Book with 17 Drum Lesson Sheets

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People that might find this book useful

– Drum teachers can print the book or single sheets for their students.
– Drummers can teach themselves following on from a strong basic foundation in reading and playing

Contents Highlights

Subdivisions, Counting Methods, Drum Fills, Skip Beats, 16th Note Hi Hat Accents, Double Kick Drum.

Full Contents

4 – Subdivision drum solo / warm up exercise
5 – 16th note counting exercises
6 – Snare drum piece with counting exercise
7 – Short fills to start a song or sections of music
8 – Bass drum skip beats
9 – Snare drum skip beats
10 – 10 rock drum beats with 16th note bass drum combinations
11 – Snare and bass drum skip beat practice beats – with open hi hats
12 – Snare and floor tom piece with sextuplets
13 – Grooves and fills piece in 6/8
14 – 10 drum fills with 6 stroke rolls
15 – 6 drum beats and drum fills exercises
16 – 10 snare drum accent exercises
17 – Part 1 – 9 drum grooves with 16th note hi hat accents
18 – Part 2 – 9 drum grooves with 16th note hi hat accents
19 – 8 beginners double kick drum beats
20 – Intermediate double kick drum beats

About the book

This ebook is a Grade 4 level compilation of 8 years of preparation work for teaching drums. It consists of drum lesson sheets that I have prepared and revised many times to be the best they can be for teaching with. To create the book I selected only the best sheets from my selection of drum sheet music lesson handouts. I printed them all out on my office floor and arranged them into a coherent order.

I have included only the sheets, rather than add lots of teaching text. This is partly to limit the amount of pages printing, and also to give teachers using the books freedom to put their own take on the lesson sheets. This will probably make it harder for self taught players, so to anyone getting stuck reading the book I would recommend building up their reading and counting knowledge online. The 16th note counting exercises on page 5 and 6 should help, and can be used when playing skip beats to help with reading and playing them.

Reading skills are really important if you are teaching yourself with this book. Further to counting 16ths like on page 5 and 6 to snare drum rhythms, you can also use them in drum beats. It’s really helpful when you learn how to do it. To give an example of counting 16ths in beats; on Page 8, Bass Drum Skip Beats, on the first bar you could count “1 & 2 & a 3 & 4 &” to help with the timing. The second bar would be counted “1 & 2 e & a 3 & 4 &”. The kick drum skips are therefore on the ‘a’ after beat 2 on the first bar, and on the second bar the skip beat kicks are on both the ‘e’ and ‘a’ after beat 2. This probably sounds complicated if you’ve never done this before. It’s how many teachers explain note placements, and it’s still how I count new beats that need working out or extra practice.

Final Thoughts

This ebook covers many of the Grade 4 elements, but it’s by no means all-encompassing. There are other ebooks that I have made for Grade 3-4 and I’m sure there will be more. This book is a leap on from “Grades 1-2 Beats & Fills Drum Book”, but there will be a Grade 3-4 beats and fills ebook soon. This book can also be used either side of these ebooks I have already created in the Grade 3-4 level: “10 Pages Of Accent Exercises With 16th Notes” and “90 Intermediate Drum Beats Focusing On The Bass Drum”.

Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons

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Snare Drum and Floor Tom Piece with Sextuplets, Single Stroke Four’s and Paradiddle-diddle’s

This piece was written for a youth drumming group but it was too difficult for them as they were not quite ready in ability. I’m sure there will be plenty of people out there that will find this a good and achievable challenge.

The drum piece will require a snare drum and floor tom, so you can play it on a regular kit, but you may need to move them closer together.

Use this piece to practice your subdivisions and rudiments, to include Sextuplets, Single Stroke Four’s and Paradiddle-diddle’s.

The left foot hi hats (X below the bottom line) are actually floor tom rims, and the X on the snare drum line is snare rim.