Learn Drums For Free – Page 18 – A blog to help with learning and teaching Drums. Written by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Books.

Metal Beats – Part 2

All these metal grooves are intended be played with a double bass drum pedal. You should already have done a lot of work with the double bass drum pedal before attempting these. If these look too difficult you could try 8 Intermediate Metal Double Bass Drum Beats.

There is a mixture of blast beats and simple double bass drum beats on this sheet. Play them all slowly to start with and then keep building up the speed. Ideally, use a metronome to record your progress, and practice this sheet over several weeks at least.

Related: Metal Beats – Part 1

Metal Drum Beats – Part 1

Related: Metal Beats – Part 2

Snare Drum Piece with Basic Rhythms for Grade 1 Sight Reading

After having a try at the sheet slowly, try playing this snare drum piece with a metronome (play it slowly at first). Focus on getting the 2 beat notes in time with the click. Also work hard on the rests, in particular the half beat rests.

Related (Premium): 10 Snare Drum Pieces – Book 1 – Levels 1-3

Two Bar Metal Grooves – Sheet 2

These are metal grooves that use the double pedal in an interesting way.

This sheet is ideal for a drummer that has been learning the double bass drum for a while, and has some reading knowledge. Hopefully this will give some people a few new ideas for creating their own double kick grooves.

Fast double kick drumming sounds great when executed with precision. Just remember, focus on accuracy and timing above speed, so start off practicing them slowly and correctly first.

9 Drum Fills Lasting 1 Bar Each – Grade 1

Here are some practice drum fills. Repeat each one until the drum fill flows nicely. You could also try playing 1, 3, 7 or 15 bars worth of drum beats leading up to playing each drum fill. This would replicate playing them in a song.

7 Drum & Bass Drum Beats

Repeat each line multiple times. You will need to be grade 5-6 level for this sheet. There is a lot of syncopation. Drum & Bass is generally fast paced, so start off slow and get the beats right first and then gradually up the speed until they are sounding fast.

The slashed Hi Hats on the 5th and 6th line mean to play double strokes on those Hi Hats. For example 1 slashed Hi Hat = 2 notes, played with a double stroke.

Drum Solo Exercises Using Six Stroke Roll With RLLRRL Sticking

This is an exercise that can be used in your practice schedule, and can be used as drum fills in your playing. This 6 Stroke Roll rudiment (played on the snare drum) is part of the technical exercises in Rockschool Grade 7 (Alternative paradiddle-diddle in sextuplet sixteenth notes), and is a good excercise for becoming more comfortable with playing it. This six stroke roll exercise can also be used / modified for drum soloing.

7 Short Drum Fills

These drum beats and drum fills exercises are for drummers that have learned how to play basic beats and fills already. A strong foundation in Snare Drum Sheet Music would be extremely useful here due to the style of the drum fills being based on snare drum rhythms.

After the first bar of drum beat, there are two ‘repeat the previous bar’ markings. Here the drummer may either copy the first bar, or develop the beat slightly. Each exercise should be repeated at least once before stopping and trying the next one.

6/8 time signature grooves and fills

A 6/8 time signature is the same as a fraction. In music it means that there are 6 eigth notes in each bar. Normally in a bar of 4/4, we have 8 eigth notes in the bar. Just like in fractions, 4/4 = 8/8).

In this 6/8 time signature, the emphasis is on beat 1 and 4.

Improvisation Test examples and ideas for Rockschool Grade 2 Drums exam

Unofficial rockschool preperation ideas for improvisation part of the Grade 2 drum exam.

Students should improvise (make up your own on the spot), but if you are stuck knowing what to do for bars 2-4 on the improvisation practice before the exam, then these should help you. Drum teachers are welcome to print these excercises out and teach them to your pupils in drum lessons.

You will get given 1 bar of a drum beat, then 2 blank bars to improvise drum beats in and then 1 blank bar for a drum fill to be played in.

The last drum fill should be played as R L L R L L R L L R, with accents on the Right hands and ghost notes (very quiet taps) on the left hands. Reverse sticking for left handed players.