Snare Drum Sheet Music focusing on 8th note (quaver) rests

This snare drum piece focuses on using 8th note rests before playing an 8th note, so that the snare drum plays on the off beat. The off beats are combined with various rhythms that you would also find up to grade 2 level, consisting of 16th note, quarter note and 8th note combinations. There are also some snares with an X note head – these are to be played on the snare rim.

Related (Premium): (Premium) – 10 Snare Drum Pieces – Book 1 – Levels 1-3 (PDF ebooks)
Related: Snare Drum Piece with Basic Rhythms for Grade 1 Sight Reading
Related: 16 bar Snare Drum Exercise – with dynamics – Grade 1-2

Sheet 2 – Drum Exercises for Beginners – Grade 1

Welcome to the second in the series of ‘Drum Exercises for Beginners – Grade 1’.

You may like to listen to the audio to help understand the sheet music.

There are short repeated exercises in the following categories, which are ideal for practicing on your own, or for using by drum teachers as part of a lesson plan.

  1. Coordination Exercise
  2. Drum Beat
  3. Drum Fill
  4. Drum Beat + Drum Fill (Combined Exercise)
  5. Rudiments Exercise (rudiments that have been developed)
  6. Snare Drum Sheet music
  7. Technique Exercise

← Exercise Sheet 1

Sheet 1 – Drum Exercises for Beginners – Grade 1

Welcome to the first in the series of ‘Drum Exercises for Beginners – Grade 1’.

There are short repeated exercises in the following categories, which are ideal for practicing on your own, or for using by drum teachers as part of a lesson plan.

You may like to listen to the audio to help understand the sheet music.

  1. Coordination Exercise
  2. Drum Beat
  3. Drum Fill
  4. Drum Beat + Drum Fill (Combined Exercise)
  5. Rudiments Exercise (rudiments that have been developed)
  6. Snare Drum Sheet music
  7. Technique Exercise

Exercise Sheet 2 →

10 breakfast snare drum exercises – phonetic rhythms

Here we are going to use 5 breakfast rhythms in various combinations to make up the 10 exercises for the snare drum. We use the words phonetically to help play the rhythms.

  • TEA (One quarter note
  • COFFEE (Two 8th notes)
  • SAUSAGES (Two 16th notes and an 8th note)
  • EGG&BACON (Four 16th notes)
  • BLUE BERRIES (One 8th note and two 16th notes)

These beginners snare drum exercises will help to read and play basic rhythm groupings.

Beginners snare skip beats

Here we have 7 basic pop/rock drum beats with an added ‘skip beat’ snare hit, which slots in between the 8th note hi hats. It’s in the same place on each drum beat. It’s on the ‘a’ of counting “2 + a“.

The counting would then be 1 + 2 + a 3 + 4 +. Some drummers don’t count that way. It’s useful to start doing that and it makes sense after a little while. You count the 8th notes as 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +, and for 16ths you count 1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a. You pronounce the e as a capital E and the a as the sound of the small letter a, which sounds like a short ‘ah’.

The skill level for these exercises is about grade 2-3, or higher if played fast.

The beats could be used in a range of styles including pop, rock and funk.

Related: Snare Drum Skip Beats

Snare drum sheet music based around single stroke fours and sextuplets

This snare drum sheet is ideal for practicing the single stroke four drum rudiment and also for playing sextuplet rhythms within a piece.

The piece could be played by a group of snare drums or other drums if the players are at an intermediate level of above (at least grade 3).

There are 5 sections labeled A-E, and A is recalled at the end for a repeat. Each section should be practiced seperately and mastered before playing through the whole snare drum piece in one go.

Beginners snare drum piece lasting 8 bars

This short snare drum piece works on a few of the fundamental subdivisions and rhythms used at grade 1 level and leading up to it. The piece consists of quarter notes, 8th notes, 16th notes and quarter note rests. The performance technique of playing on the rim of the snare is also included, where the X note head is displayed instead of the usual snare.

(Premium) – 10 Snare Drum Pieces – Book 1 – Levels 1-3 (PDF ebooks)

Introduction

After a year of teaching a local youth group of drummers aged between 8 and 12, ranging from beginners to intermediate players, this collection of 10 snare drum pieces was created as an archive of this body of work.

The MYM Snare Drumline Group is an adaption of Snare Line / Drumline groups, tribal drumming, military drumming, Drum Corps, and film score music.

There are many areas left to explore for the drum group. This first book focusses on building a foundation of simple and short snare drum pieces to help give the group confidence and develop a strong sense of rhythm, timing and pulse. There is also a very small amount of dynamic use, repeats, and drum rudiments.

Demonstration of Pieces 6, 2 and 3 from the book

Here is a video of the girls in the group performing pieces (in order) 6, 2, and 3 from this snare drum book, which is an entry for the 2017 competition ‘Hit Like A Girl‘. The girl on your left is performing the level 2 pieces and the other 3 are playing from the level 3 book. At the time of video, 1 of the level 3 girls is studying grade 2 rockschool and the other two playing level 3 are studying grade 3 rockschool drums.

Level 1 Book

The Level 1 book is designed for complete beginners, or ‘basic beginners’ level. This level could also be played by players of other instruments that are new to drums.

Level 2 Book

Level 2 is designed for grade 1-2 level. The rhythms are more complex, but there are no buzz rolls or drags.

Level 3 Book

Created for grade 2-3 level drummers. It encorporates buzz rolls, drags, flams, and harder rhythms.

These books are primarily intended for groups of drummers or differing abilities. Teachers may print entire books for the students, or pick and choose pieces to suit them. Teachers or students may also use these sheets or books for single snare drum playing. Teachers may purchase this book online and print out unlimited copies for their students.

Buy Now →

FREE PREVIEW OF THIS EBOOK: Group Snare Drum Piece with 3 difficulty levels (Piece 2, Book 1)
FREE PREVIEW OF THIS EBOOK: Group snare drum piece with 3 difficulty levels (Piece 5, Book 1)

Recommended reading for use with this ebook:
→ Accent Techniques – Down, Tap, Up, Full Strokes
→ Reading Buzz Rolls And Double Stroke Markings

7 Jazz Drum Patterns with 3 and 4 way co-ordination sheets

These jazz drum patterns are for at least grade 3 level. The 3 way co-ordination exercises could also be tried slowly by Grade 1-2.

Drummers that are new to jazz could start with these even if they are a pro in other genres. These patterns will be hard if you are new to less regimented styles like Jazz and Latin drumming (i.e. you are more used to pop/rock).

That is the background I come from with drums – pop, rock, funk, metal. Then I was introduced to Jazz. After my Rockschool Grades (we skipped Jazz in my lessons), after my early teenage years of practicing and learning and exploring new and old music. At drum college I was introduced to Jazz when I was 16 or 17. Since this I have always had a place in my heart for Jazz. It is probably where I really started to get an understanding for melody and how it related with my primary passion of drums. The drums in Jazz compliment the melody a lot! The thing I was always taught with Jazz was to either ‘learn the melody’, or to ‘play off the improvised melody’. Over 10 years later and my interests have been drawn even more to creating melodies on other instruments, and I learn more and more how the instruments compliment each other.

So, onto the drum patterns. The patterns are all triplet based and all have a ride cymbal on the 1 2 3 4 beats. The rest of the triplet beats are played by different bass drum and snare drum combinations. These type of movements are fundamental to Jazz drumming. The left foot hi hat is also fundamental. I have also included a 4 way co-ordination sheet for when the 3 way co-ordination patterns begin to get easy. The patterns are all linear apart from the left foot and and right hand on beats 2 and 4 on the 4 way co-ordination patterns, which means that there is only one drum voice playing at once. This helps to get used to playing in triplets, and for focusing on the snare and bass drum patterns. In more advanced Jazz, these types of snare and bass drum patterns will poly rhythm with different right hand ostinati, making things a lot harder.

 

Sheet 1: 3 way coordination

Sheet 2: 4 way coordination

Related: 8 Starter Jazz Drum Beats with 3 way co-ordination

7 Linear drum beats for beginners – and the Mieze·Katze drum beat

Linear drum beats, a term that I was introduced to at drum college, are made up of single drum hits only. No drums or cymbals are hit simultaneously. This leads to interesting sounding beats that can be quite hard to play after a little deviation from basic linear patterns.

Basic patterns like “Bass, Hi Hat, Snare, Hi Hat” are linear beats and this one in particular is very popular and easy. In germany, this linear rhythm is known as “Mieze Katze” or “Mie·ze·kat·ze”, which translates as “Kitty Kat”. This is something I saw on a show called ‘The moaning of life’ (see video below).

 

 

There are many many combinations you could try for linear beats, and they are a great way to use some of your rudiments, like paradiddle based rudiments. Introduce accents on certain notes to really spice things up. Have a go at these 7 linear drum beats, and then get experimenting with making up your own!