Tag: drum beat exercises

40 Hip Hop and Funk Skip Beats and Fills Exercises ebook – Grades 3-8

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Introduction

This book contains drum beats and drum fills in the styles of Hip Hop, Rap, Grime and Funk, Soul and Rock/Pop. The book has some grade 3-4 level exercises and also some harder ones, ranging from Grade 5 to Grade 8. The book would be an ideal add on for anyone studying Grades 5-8, as many of the skills are needed at this level. To achieve grade 8, the exercises would need to be played precisely, with correct dynamics, speed and fluidity.

Video

You can use this video as a guide for when you are practicing the book but get stuck on a particular exercise – just look up the timestamp link below. Like I say later in the video, the book is not designed to be played in one go and you should focus on 1 or 2 sheets per session and really drill down those grooves and get the fills correct and precise. Precision is key with all of these exercises, no matter what speed you play them at.

Free PDF Sheets to browse or use before buying the book

  • Free PDF Download: Sheet 3 and Sheet 7 are available for free here: (just click the ‘Preview’ link top right of cover).

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People that might find this book useful

  • Drum teachers can print the book or single sheets for their students. They may like to select only some pages to teach if the students are not up to Grade 6 level. The flicks between ability levels and is not necessarily in order of ability. To achieve grade 8, the harder exercises would be played fluently and precisely at speed.
  • Drummers can teach themselves following on from a strong foundation in reading and playing at Grade 3 and above.
  • Drummers that want to learn funk and hip hop beats and fills in depth

About the book

The structure of the book is based on one of my favourite books “40 Beats and Fills Exercises (Grade 1-2)”. There are 40 exercises over 11 sheets, and I have also included 2 bonus sheets with basic skip beats with 8th note hi hats and 16th note hi hats, which adds an extra 20 exercises, but I’m not counting those in the title.

I created the book so that my students could study skip beats at grades 3-4 level and also for my students working on Grades 5, 6 and 8 (I usually skip grade 7) to work on alongside their grades.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoy working on this book or teaching with this book. Stick the metronome on and get into the groove. Repeat for less or more than 4 times for each exercise, it’s up to you. To extend the exercises, try playing the beats on the ride cymbal and adding in left foot hi hat ostinati.

Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons

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10 Basic Hip Hop and Funk Skip Beats with 16th note hi hats

This sheet contais 10 basic skip beats, with 16th note hi hats. They do get a little tricky towards the end. The two basic beats sheets should be mastered (or at least not a real struggle) before moving on to the rest of the skip beats book, because it does get harder (there is some basic stuff too). You can also play these with 8th note hi hats, which is a lot easier.

Here is a video showing you how to play all 10 of these drum beats:

As the video shows, you should aim for a RLRL pattern with the sticks (opposite for left handers), and therefore play the back beat snares with the right hand on beats 2 and 4, and any skip beat snares with the left hand (on the e or the a, if you are counting 1 e + a 2 e + a…). You should bring the left arm underneath or to the left of the right hand (depending on your drum set up positioning) to play the skip beats.

I would also recommend to play each beat a lot more than 2 times each! If you are doing these types of beats for the first time, you might like to break down each beat into sections. One way of doing this is to break down the bar into 4 sections and just play each section seperately (e.g. each section lasts for 1 beat). Nail each beat of the bar and then try to glue a couple of beats together. There are a few combinations like play beats 1 and 2 together, or 2 and 3 together for example. You could also practice looping the beats for a while and you could practice with various metronome speeds. You can also play ghost notes on any of the skip beat snares not on beats 2 and 4.

View the full book: https://payhip.com/b/63jF

10 Basic Hip Hop and Funk Skip Beats

This sheet is one of 2 bonus warm up sheets in the book 40 Hip Hop and Funk Skip Beats and Fills Exercises. Before getting stuck into exercises usually lasting for 4 or more bars, we focus here on 1 bar at a time, looping each drum beat for a while and making it comfortable to play.

Here is a video showing how to play these 10 exercises:

You should focus on mastering each beat on this sheet before moving onto the rest of the book. When it starts to get more comfortable, introduce the metronome at around 60-70bpm and settle down into a groove for a bit. Try increasing the speed after a while. The skip beats are the snare drums or bass drums that slot in between the 8th note hi hats. The ‘skip’ should be exactly in the middle of the space between the hi hats. when added they should sound like even 16th notes between the hi hats and the skip beats. Concentrate hard on acheiving this even spacing to make your beats sound tight.

Often snare drum skip beats are played as ghost notes. This is not notated, but you should also go through the sheet again trying this.

You can also view the next sheet in the book for free: 10 Basic Hip Hop and Funk Skip Beats with 16th note hi hats.

8 funk rock drum beats with 16th note hi hats

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.

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Sheet 1 – 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Grade 1-2

For this exercise sheet, you will need some basic beginners reading knowledge of drum beats and drum fills.

In the exercises, you will play 3 bars of drum beats, 1 bar of a drum fill and then repeat the exercise. There are 4 exercises on the sheet and each one can be played twice, or more times if you like and perhaps the sheet can be revisited on over several practice sessions if needed.

On the first 3 exercises, there are times when there are 2 hi hats on their own with no bass drum or snare drum, so it’s helpful to especially listen out for these two hits whilst playing to avoid missing one of them out, as some learners can do by accident.

All of the drum fills are played on the snare drum only. If there are 2 lines attaching the notes, they are played as 4 fast notes. If there is 1 beam attaching the notes, they are 2 medium speed notes, and if there is one single note on it’s own, it’s 1 single hit lasting for 1 beat. There is also a rests for 1 beat that look like a squiggle on the 3rd exercise’s drum fill, so for that you don’t play anything, and wait for 1 more beat before continuing.

More Sheets like this

If you found this exercise sheet useful, you can download all 10 sheets in this premium ebook: 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Ebook.

Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 2 – Grade 1-2

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Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 2 – Grade 1-2

It’s still the summer holidays and most people are taking a well deserved break. I’ve been on holiday and I’m fully relaxed but I have a few lesson days coming up so I’m keeping on with lesson prep and making new material like this. I have made this sheet for some of my drum students to learn and practice over the holidays, which can be done in about 5 minutes and can be easily practiced several times per week.

In this practice routine, we are covering many of the fundamental parts of grade 1 and grade 2 material. First on the sheet we have singles and doubles (left handers need to play the opposite sticking to the ones shown). Whilst we don’t usually learn a proper double strokes technique until about grade 5 level, we still play doubles to get used to it, and you will just be hitting the drum with the same technique as you would for a single hit.

Secondly, we will be accenting (playing louder) the ‘off beat’, which means it’s not on the 1 2 3 4, it’s in between those. You could cound 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. The accents would then be on every +. Then, moving onto a basic drum beat in the second bar, the accents are played in the same place but this time you play them on the hi hats.

The flams and stepped hi hat section is for building up your stepped hi hat coorination aswell as for practicing the all important flam. Make sure the stick height for the quiet note in the flam is kept quite close to the drum (2 to 4 inches depending on the volume). The stick can start at a much higher position for the loud note in the flam.

For the rhythm/fills section, I have included ‘breakfast rhythm’ counting to help. If you say the words at the same time as playing the rhythm, it should help you. The rhythm on the drum fill is the same as the one in the first bar on the snare drum, so it’s a nice exercise that flows.

Lastly, many students complain about improvisation, so it’s important to practice this until confidence is higher. Start off with really easy drum fills lasting for 1 bar and build up your confidence with each practice.

Related: Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 1 – Grade 1-2

Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 1 – Grade 1-2

In this practice routine, we are covering many of the fundamental parts of grade 1 and grade 2 material. On the sheet we have a paradiddle 8 times (left handers need to play the opposite sticking).

There are accents on 8th note snare drums and then moving onto a basic drum beat, the accents are played in the same place but this time on the hi hat part of the drum beat.

The flams and stepped hi hat section has a classic rock feel to it and it is an easy way of introducing 4 way coordination into your playing.

For the rhythm/fills section, it’s the same rhythm on the drum fill as it is in the first bar on the snare drum, so it’s a nice exercise that flows, so we do that 8 times.

Related: Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 2 – Grade 1-2

Beats and Fills Exercises – Sheet 11

Sheets 1 to 10 are available as an ebook called 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Ebook, which consists of 10 drum exercise sheets with 4 exercises on each page.

In that book, the exercises are all based on beats using the Hi Hat and playing a drum fill on bar 4, and then repeating. The next step you could take is continuing those beats but moving the right hand (if you are right handed) onto the Ride cymbal or the Floor Tom, instead of playing the Hi Hats throughout the drum beats.

This, ‘Sheet 11’, is a continuation of this book, available for free, There are various directions you could go after the first book. I am also writing another book focusing on playing on the ride cymbal and using the stepped hi hat, which may become or feature as ‘Book 2’ of this series, or perhaps I will do a mixture and include sheets like this one too.

The drum music is written in an easy to read sort of way, where all of the drum voices (bass, snare, hi hat etc) are linked in one stem, rather than separating the cymbals from the rest of the drums. This way of writing and reading has proved very popular with my students and I think it’s a good way of reading drums to start with, before moving on to the regular way of writing and reading the music.

[Premium] – 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Ebook

I’ll start by saying I’m really pleased with this ebook! It’s a compilation of half a year’s work, which started out as making some fun and useful exercise sheets for my drum students. I would make one sheet every every couple of weeks or so and it eventually finished at sheet 10, not just because it’s a round number, but because I was ready to start introducing other things that wouldn’t neccesarily fit in neatly with this ebook. I’m very pleased with the book because it’s very focussed on the fundamentals of drumming that every drummer should be learning to start with at least.

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Introduction

This drum ebook is a good set of exercises for the beginner drummer that has learned how to read and play very basic beats and fills already. All 40 exercises are laid out in the same way so it’s a focussed effort on building up your core drum beat beat and drum fill skills.

  • For beginners Grade 1-2 level drummers.
  • 10 Exercise sheets with 4 exercises per sheet.
  • Improve your drum beats and drum fills and practice changing from one to the other.
  • Exercises consist of 3 bars of a drum beat and 1 bar of a fill, repeated.
  • It’s a fun ebook to work through quickly or slowly. 1 sheet per week would work well for some.

The layout is slightly different to my other books so far. Usually the cymbals are notated separately (stems pointing up) to the rest of the drums (pointing down), but in this book everything is pointing in the same direction (usually up, although it doesn’t matter which way they go). I find that at this beginners / grade 1 stage, it all makes more sense this way to learners because otherwise you get rests appearing sometimes in the bottom part of the stave when there are still hi hats playing, and this almost always causes confusion with beginners young and old. It’s important to learn the other way too and move onto that, and it’s like that in most of my other books.

For beginners, but not straight away

A complete beginner could start this book early on, but not straight away. They can follow the book either with a teacher or on their own if they are a quick learner. Self taught learners may need to look some things up because not everything is explained for the complete beginner. A good book to start with for complete beginners is First Drum Book – Easy Reading Beats & Fills, which is especially good for younger learners. Another ebook that has content for complete beginners in is Beats and Fills Drum Book – Basic Beginners – PDF Ebook. That book goes beyond complete beginner too and has similar ability level content to this book, so it can be used in addition.

The usual info

  • When you purchase, you get a pdf file to keep. Please do not redistribute the file, unless you are a teacher sending it to students to practice with.
  • Drum teachers can print the book or single sheets as required for their students.
  • Drummers can teach themselves following on from a strong basic foundation in reading and playing

I hope you enjoy the ebook!

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Grade 1 Rock Beats – Free PDF ebook

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This short ebook gives you 1 page of the break down of how a basic drum beat is contructed and then 3 pages with 10 rock drum beats on each page.

The first of the 3 core pages of beats is with 8th note closed hi hats. The second page is the same beats again but with open hi hats (the note heads with cirles around them). The 3rd page has different beats with quarter note hi hats (really has that rock sound), which can also be played as half open hi hats or closed hi hats.

I hope this free ebook is helpful for students and teachers looking for a few quick sheets to get them started with. I also hope that you will enjoy the quality of the free ebook enough to try some of the premium drum ebooks.