To play these drum beats you must follow a RLRL pattern on the hi hats, and move over to the snare on beats 2 and 4 with the right hand (all opposite for left handers). The bass drum foot is doing all the work here but you will also need to make sure to lock in tight where the bass drum is played together with the left hand on the hi hat, as these can sometimes go out of sync.
As the year draws to an end, we still have 4 weeks of lessons left to prep for exams and I have some Grade 5 drummers taking their exams in Feb/March. To give them a break from their pieces and bolster their playing, reading and listening ability of Grade 5 level, I’ve been getting them to play these 8 drum beats. We’ve done a mixture of reading, groove recall and also playing from memory. The beats are not easy at first, but they get easier. We’ve also expanded the exercises, for example play a crash on the first bar and play each beat 3 times and then make up a drum fill for the 4th bar, either a whole bar or part of the bar.
