Learn Drums For Free – Page 12 – A blog to help with learning and teaching Drums. Written by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Books.

10 Basic Rock Drum Beats

Video Lesson

In this lesson we will run through 10 popular rock drum beats. I will show you how to do variations on each beat, which will extend the contents of the sheet a lot, and give you ideas for practicing. I will also show you how they sound at slow, medium and fast speeds with a metronome. This is my first drum kit video and I am pleased to have included 2 camera angles, to show the feet. However, I was using my old phone to do this and it ran out of storage towards the end of the video, so it cuts off. Hopefully I can sort that out for future videos.

Beat 1 00:26 Beat 2 05:25 Beat 3 07:11 Quarter Note Hi Hats / Ride / Floor Tom Right Hand Pattern: 8:28 Beat 4 09:56 Beat 5 10:53 Beat 6 11:44 Metronome Tips 12:00 Beat 7 12:50 Beat 8 13:36 Hi Hat Stick Height Tips 15:01 Individual Drum Volumes / Self Mixing 15:44 Beat 9 18:30 Beat 10 20:23

About the lesson sheet

Here are 10 different rock drum beats, with notation and audio. These are for any beginners that have learned a basic drum beat, or maybe a few basic beats already and want to learn some more.

Basic drum beats should be repeated for ages to be most effective in truely learning the beats. It isn’t as useful to just read and play them. The most fun way to practice these is to jam them woth another instrument or a backing track. If you are a teacher that can play bass, guitar or piano, try this with your students if you haven’t already. Pupils can tire of repeating a drum beat on it’s own for several minutes (which is needed) but when playing along with another instrument it is fun and enjoyable to play for a while without stopping. Variation on the accompanying instrument can really add to the experience. Students can also do this on their own by putting on a song and just practicing one drum beat along with it, or finding another musician to jam grooves and drum beats with.

Drum Books with Basic Rock Beats

First Drum Book – Easy Reading Beats & Fills
Beats and Fills Drum Book – Basic Beginners
40 Beats and Fills Exercises – Ebook.

8 Intermediate Metal Double Bass Drum Beats

These double bass drum grooves can be played by advanced beginners, intermediate players, and above. Double kick beginners should try this very slowly to start with.

These grooves can be played in professional songs, they are mostly generic metal grooves and widely used by metal drummers.

These 8 metal drum grooves are all played with a quarter note hi hat ostinato, which is notated to be played with open hi hats. These should be played slightly open rather than fully open, to achieve that slushy hi hat sound heard in the majority of hard rock and metal songs. Many metal drummers keep the hi hats permanently in this position by setting up the height of the top hi hat cymbal to be only just a slither higher than the bottom one. This enables the drummer to have both feet free to bring the thunder on the bass drum pedals, whilst still being able to play a mixture of open and closed hi hats when needed.

FOOT PATTERN: R L R L [x4
FOOT PATTERN: R L R L – L R L [x2]
FOOT PATTERN: R L R – [x4]
FOOT PATTERN: R L R – – L R [x2]
FOOT PATTERN: – L R L [x4]
FOOT PATTERN: – L R – [x4]
FOOT PATTERN: – L – L [x4]
FOOT PATTERN: R L – L – L – L [x2]

The drum sheet music can be used as seperate exercises (1 per line), or as a complete exercise.

4 way co ordination pop drum beats with quarter note stepped hi hat – Step by step guide

Anyone who has some knowledge and experience playing essential beginners drum beats can give this a go. Moderate to fast speed and playing accuracy should be mastered first.

The left foot stepped hi hat

The left foot should quickly close the hi hat to make a sound similar to when you play a normal clised hi hat with the stick.

Beat 1

Step 1

Start by playing the ride, bass and the stepped hi hat all together.

Step 2

Then play the ride, snare and stepped hi hat all together.

Step 3

The next two beats are the same as the first two. Then the bar repeats (for as long as you like).

Beat 2

Step 1

Start by playing the ride, bass and the stepped hi hat all together.

Step 2

Next just a ride on it’s own.

Step 3

Then play the ride, snare and stepped hi hat all together.

Step 4

Next just a ride on it’s own.

Step 5

The next two beats worth are the same as the first two. Then the bar repeats (for as long as you like).

Beat 3

Step 1

Start by playing the ride, bass and the stepped hi hat all together.

Step 2

Then play the ride, snare, bass drum, and stepped hi hat all together.

Step 3

The next two beats are the same as the first two. Then the bar repeats (for as long as you like).

Beat 4

Step 1

Start by playing the ride, bass and the stepped hi hat all together.

Step 2

Next just a ride on it’s own.

Step 3

Then play the ride, snare, bass and stepped hi hat all together.

Step 4

Next just a ride on it’s own.

Step 5

The next two beats worth are the same as the first two. Then the bar repeats (for as long as you like).

Beat 5

Try not to get confused with the rests in this one, just ignore them.

Step 1

Start with a bass drum and closed hi hat together.

Step 2

Then play the ride on it’s own.

Step 3

Play the snare and closed hi hat together.

Step 4

Then play the ride on it’s own.

Step 5

The next two beats worth are the same as the first two. Then the bar repeats (for as long as you like).

Beat 6

Step 1

Start with a bass drum and closed hi hat together.

Step 2

Then play the ride on it’s own.

Step 3

Play the snare, bass and closed hi hat together.

Step 4

Then play the ride on it’s own.

Step 5

The next two beats worth are the same as the first two. Then the bar repeats (for as long as you like).

10 rock and pop drum beats with quarter note stepped hi hats – 4 way co ordination

This exercise sheet features most of the drum beats from page 3 of the Grade 1 Rock Beats ebook, by adding a quarter note stepped hi hat ostinato.

Anyone who has some knowledge and experience playing basic drum beats can give this a go. Moderate to fast speed and playing accuracy should be mastered before entering Grade 5 level.

Left foot hi hat ability is often overlooked or ignored by many pop and rock drummers. Don’t be one of them! I was and I spent ages as an adult going back and learning and practicing with the left foot. Even though I played double kick, my left foot hi hat technique was still weak in beats, in paticular for syncapated funk beats and latin styles.

Get stuck onto these exercises and give your left foot a much needed boost!

10 Drum Beats With 1 Bar Drum Fills Using Quarter 8ths And 16th Notes

These exercises are great for putting together drum beats and drum fills, like they would appear in a song. Well, in a song the fills would happen less often than this, but the beats have been shorten so as to practice both fairly equally.

The drum fills are ideal for those quite new to playing drum fills. Some subdivision knowledge of quarter notes, 8th noets and 16th notes is useful.

The drum beats may be hard for complete beginners, so some experience of playing them first is recommended before mixing them with the fills, which are a bit easier than the drum beats.

Blank drum sheet music for hand writing drum music – Free PDF

Get Free PDF Download →

Download the free PDF file to get unlimited access to printing your own blank drum sheet music. You can use this to hand write your own drum beats, drum fills, or for writing out the drums for a song. Teachers can use these to write out drum music for their students. Composers and arrangers can print these off in order to hand write a quick drum score.

There are no annoying watermarks or footer text – it’s just plain blank drum sheet music staves with no writing.

Please don’t distribute the PDF file on any other website or via email – please just link to this page if you want to share it.

6 Beginners Drum Beats in Pop, Rock, Funk, Jazz, Reggae and Blues styles

A variety of 6 different musical styles in the form of drum beats.

Objective: To develop an awereness of different styles of music and to be able to play the basic drum beats.

With this sheet, although there are no repeats, you should repeat each line multiple times and get into the rhythm and groove. Aim for evenly spaced notes at a slow speed. Repeat slowly for a while and get into the beat. Then you can try speeding it up a little bit, and then a bit more and gradually more until it’s fast. Then onto the next beat.

Related: Reading Drum Notation

10 Beginners 1 Bar Drum Beats With 1 Bar Drum Fills

These exercises are great for putting together drum beats and drum fills, like they might appear in a song, although usually there are more drum beats than fills in a song. These exercises have a 1 bar drum beat and 1 bar of a fill, so that each type is practiced equally.

The drum fills are ideal for those playing drum fills for the first time. The drum beats are quite hard for complete beginners, so some experience of playing them first is recommended before mixing them with the fills, which are a bit easier than the drum beats.

One thing that could be a stumbling block to playing the drum fills, is reading the drum notation and knowing which lines of the staves the toms are on. Here is a useful reference sheet for this: Reading Drum Notation.

Beginners Drum fills lasting for 2 beats – Half bar drum fills

The drum fills last for 2 beats, or half a bar of 4/4. They are all made up of combinations of 16th notes and 8th notes, and 1/4 note flams. There are 12 drum fills.

The drum fills could be used in the final bar of a section. For example, play 7 and a half bars of drum beats, and then insert one of these drum fills – and then repeat. To finish off the exercises after repeating, you could play a crash and bass together.

The fills could also be used to start off a song or before playing through some drum beats.

Mix and match the fills to create 1 bar fills lasting 4 beats.

10 beginners drum beats with 2 beat drum fills exercises

The structure for these drum exercises is: One and a half bar of a drum beat, then half a bar drum fill – and repeat.

These drum exercises are for practicing drum beats and fills, similar to what you would do in a song environment, by playing the drum fills before and after drum beats.

The exercises have been limited to 2 bars, with a single repeat, so that the drum beats and drum fills are practiced fairly equally, rather than playing the drum beat for longer like in a song. Therefore the skill of playing the beat for longer and counting bars like 7 and a half, or 15 and a half before playing the fill is not being exercised here, but should be practiced another time.

This sheet could be used by beginner students up to grade 1 or grade and even grade 3 students could find these useful and challenging by playing them very quickly.

For a variation on the drum beats, you could swap the hi hats for a ride cymbal, or even a floor tom. You could also add in open hi hats (or ride bells) for quick drum beat variations.