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.
Tag: drum beats
Construction of a basic drum beat in 7 steps
We are going to learn a basic drum beat. It’s one that you will have heard before.
I’m going to break it down into one thing at a time, or two things, and show you how it’s constructed. It’s a great way for beginners to learn how to play it, and how to count it properly.
These are the instructions for each line of the sheet above:
- Let’s start by just playing the Hi Hat. Play it closed with your right hand, and count 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +.
- Now just play the bass drum. Count 1 2 3 4, but only play the bass on beat 1 and 3. You can loop this round and around.
- Count 1 2 3 4 again, but this time play the snare drum on 2 and 4. Again, loop this until it’s easy.
- Now it’s going to start sounding like a beat. Count 1 2 3 4. Play the bass on 1 and 3, and the snare on 2 and 4. So it will go bass, snare, bass, snare. This is probably the most used sequence in drumming, so loop it and get really comfortable playing it.
- OK, let’s go back to the hi hat, and combine it with the bass drum. Hi hat on 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. Bass on 1 and 3.
- Just one more combo before the full drum beat. Hi hat on 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. Snare drum on 2 and 4.
- Finally, we will now combine everything we have learned, to make the most popular basic drum beat. Hi hat on 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. Snare drum on 2 and 4. Bass on 1 and 3.
Related: Construction Of A Basic 16th Note Hi Hat Drum Beat In 7 Steps
Related: 10 Basic Rock Drum Beats
Related (Premium): Grade 1 Rock Beats Ebook – The lesson you have just been through is featured in the ebook as an A4 printable handout for students.
16th Note Hi Hat Grooves With Accents
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
12 Bar Blues Shuffle – Easy
A simple shuffled drum groove with a triplet based drum fill on bar 12. Shuffle is another word for Swing.
This can be played at various tempos and is something you could play or improvise around at a blues jam night.
Off Beat Open Hi Hat Grooves
The open hi hats can be seen in the sheet music where the hi hat has a circle around it.
All the beats have open hi hats on the “and” of the beat (i.e. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +).
These beats are a good introduction to playing open hi hats in general, and particularly good for learning the off best feel. These beats need to be repeated a lot and groove needs to be felt by the drummer. A simple ska type guitar riff accompaniment would be an appropiate jamming style for developing an internal sense of groove. On bass a fun slap and pop bass riff would fit, or else something funky without these techniques.
Related: For more of a challenge, try these: Open Hi Hat Grooves Practice Piece with Fills
Samba Funk Drum Grooves – Grade 8
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.
16th note hi hat drum beat exercises
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.
Bass Drum Skip Beats
A bass drum skip beat is where the bass drum is played in between the high hats. The skip beats create syncopation, and is often used in funk drumming.
This sheet has a useful selection of different bass drum skip beat combinations. You could either treat the sheet as a series of 1 line exercises, or as 1 full exercises.
Related: Snare Drum Skip Beats
Snare Drum Skip Beats
Skip beats are intermediate and above drum beats where the snare drum skips in between a regular 8th note hi hat ostinato.
The word syncopation is often used to describe the sound these kind of drum beats.
Skip beats can be heard in many styles of music, including funk, rock, drum and bass, pop, hip hop, and soul.
Try to master each drum beat seperately first, then start combining different grooves back to back with each other to make interesting drum loops or drum grooves.
Related: Beginners Snare Skip Beats
Related: Bass Drum Skip Beats
Practice sheet for learning to play drum beats in 6/8 time
Here is a selection of beginner drum grooves in a 6/8 time signature. After practicing through the sheet at least once, try and work on playing with a metronome at various speeds. You may need to work on one bar or one line at a time if you need to practice some parts more than others, or if you would struggle to play the whole sheet in one go.