A blog to help with learning and teaching Drums. Written by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Books.
These 8 drum beats will test your ability to add accented notes to the two handed hi hat pattern, whilst also negotiating tricky bass drum rhythms and open hi hat combinations.
Start off slowly and build it up when you are comfortable with the grooves at low speed. Improve your timing and measure your progress with a metronome. You should start as low as 40 or 50 bpm, but probably easier without a click, or double it up to an 8th note click, because the slow click will be tricky to play to.
In this lesson we are going to breakdown the construction of a basic 16th note drum groove, which uses two hands on the high hat.
The following audio examples are 1 per line of music.
Here we have very basic snare and bass drum grooves, with challenging accented 16th note hi hat accent rhythms.
The Hi Hats should be played with 2 hands, with the leading hand moving over to the snare drum on beats 2 and 4.
Tip: You could play the accents on the Hi Hat edge, and the non-accents on the top of the Hi Hat, for a really good contrast in volume and tone.
These drum beats are good to play after spending some time working on the more rudimental type 16th note accent snare drum exercises like Accent Techniques – Down, Tap, Up, Full Strokes and 16th Note Accent Exercises ebook – 10 pages.
Related (Premium): The sheet from this post is included in this ebook – Grade 4 Drum Book with 17 Drum Lesson Sheets
Related: Accent Techniques – Down, Tap, Up, Full Strokes
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), but this sort of thing can also be played in other songs of a similar style, or it could just be used as a general practice exercise for a drummer who is at Grade 8 or above.
Playing Tip: The fast 32nd note hi hat notes are played using the double stroke technique.
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 handers: lead with your left hand and the snare will be played with the left hand also.
