Tag: drum fill exercises

Sheet 5 – Sheet 5 – Beginners Drum Warm Up Exercises

Lines 1-3

The first drum fill that most drummers learn is 4 groups of 16th notes around the kit, which is 4 hits on the snare drum with a RLRL sticking, then 4 on the high tom, 4 on the medium tom, and 4 on the floor tom. On this sheet we also have this pattern at the start but it’s all on the snare drum (16 snare hits in total) and there are bass drums on the 1st note of each group of 4 snares.

For the rest of the exercise sheet, this full bar of 16th notes is used again but on different drums, or to develop the patterns, some of the 16th notes have been taken away completly, such as on beat 2 of bar 4, or on bar 6 where there are 8th notes rests whilst the bass drum plays on its own.

The notation is kept fairly simple for it to be enjoyable to play as a warm up exercise, which should include elements of repetition. This is acheived by playing the bass drum on the 1 2 3 4 pulse throughout the exercise sheet.

Lines 4-6

There are crash cymbals introduced in the second half of the exercise sheets which ae added to give added challenges and also so that the 4 bass drum hits per bar don’t sound too repetative.

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Sheet 4 – Advanced Beginners to Early Intermediate Drum Warm Ups

This is an 8 bar drum warm up exercises consisting of a single bar drum fill idea, which is developed during the following 7 bars with similar fills and applying different 16th note and 8th note rhythms whilst following the same pattern around the kit.


The ability level is around Grade 2-4 because of the use of developed 16th note rhythms.

Help and notes for reading the warm up sheet

The first bar is played ‘RLRL’ throughout with 16th notes, accenting the pulse of 1 2 3 4. The accented notes move around the kit (snare, high tom, hi hat + bass drum, floor tom) but the other notes stay on the snare drum. On every other bar, the accents stay the same but the rhythms change.

On bar 2, the rhythm is 1 + a 2 + a, and so on. Bar 3 has a ‘1 e (+) a’ rhythm at the start, which is played ‘R L – L’, which is the same on beat 3. On bar 4 the rhythms are ‘1 e +, 2 e +’. Bars 5-8 have a dotted quaver followed by a semi quaver rhythm, which is played ‘1 (e) (+) a’. The ones in brackets can be counted, but not played.

On the final bar, the stepped hi hat is added in to finish off the warm up. If you wanted to, you could add the stepped hi hat all of the way through.

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6 Rock Exercises with Drum Beats and Fills

These 6 Rock Exercises are selected from the pdf ebook ‘40 Beats and fills Exercises – Book 3‘.

I have selected these 6 exercises because they give a good insight to the book as well as being a really useful resource on it’s own. Perhaps a drum teacher would print this off for their pupils to work on, or a drummer might want to focus on rock drumming and use this on it’s own for several sessions.

The difficulty levels range from about grade 3 to grade 6, which I would say is advanced beginner to intermediate.

Below is a copy of the other two pages. You can also get the PDF file from here by clicking on the ‘Preview’ link: https://payhip.com/b/JESGw

Sheet 3 – Beginners Drum Warm Up Exercises

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Beginners Drum Warm Up Exercises

The difficulty on this sheet goes slightly higher with adding 8th notes to the drum beats and the drum fills are a little more advanced too, especially the rhythm of the crash and bass drum hits at the end. A drum teacher can help with this. Once you hear the rhythm it shouldn’t be too hard. You can hear the same rhythm of the ending crash cymbals (in the penultimate bar of this sheet) at the start of a famous song called We Found Love by Rhianna. Whenever I see this rhythm in any music, I always think of this song! I’m sure the rhythm has stronger roots elsewhere, perhaps in Latin American carnival type music, but that’s just what sticks in my mind.

To further disect the final line of fills, you also will need to play a triplet at the end of the first bar whilst counting ‘4 trip let’ and on the second bar there is a flam on beat 2 followed by a floor tom on beat 2 +.

Going back to the start, it’s also important to observe the driving accents on the beat, which should be played on the floor tom, and not really the bass drum. This also goes for the second line. Lines 3 and 4 could also be played with these driving accents on the ride cymbal if you would like to.

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Sheet 2 – Drum Warm Up Exercises for Beginners

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This beginners drum warm-up exercise includes easy drum beats with quarter note ride cymbals. The quarter note ride cymbal drum beats start off sparsely, like they are not complete drum beats, and then build into more of a basic beat with a kick-snare-kick-snare rhythm. The drum warm up then finishes with a fully formed drum fill, which tries to stay easy at the same time as being mildly challenging and musically interesting.

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Drum Warm Up Exercises for Advanced Beginners – Sheet 1

Advanced beginners drum warm up exercises for use in drum lessons, or for starting a practice or learning sessions.

Advanced beginners drum warm up exercises for use in drum lessons, or for starting a practice or learning sessions.

This is the first sheet in a collection of drum warm up exercises that will be made into a pdf ebook. You can use and print the main image on this website for educational use, or you also have the option of purchasing a PDF copy of Drum Warm Up Exercises for Advanced Beginners – Sheet 1.

In the sheet there is a snare drum rhythm exercise that has be made to sound good when repeated. Drummers should aim to increase the speed once comfortable with the rhythms. Likewise for the other exercises too. Start off slow and build up confidence and ability before going fast.

The flams exercise should be played by playing R L R L on all 8th notes, which is why one of the flams is played with the left hand playing the louder part of the flam, because it’s on one of the off-beat 8th notes. The second bar could be played R L R L or the 8th notes could be changed into paradiddles, meaning the second flam would be played with the left hand on the stronger note. Left handers will need to do the opposite to all of this.

The swing beat could easily be made harder but this could be the first time some drummers have been introduced to it so I’ve kept it fairly simple. The 8th notes are to be played with swing on the ride cymbals. If you don’ know what that means, have a listen to The Pink Panther theme tune and listen to the ride cymbals.

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2 Longer Rock Exercises with Beats and Fills – Sheet 7 – Inside The Book: 40 Beats and Fills Book 2

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Here is Exercise Sheet 7 from 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2.

This sheet only has 2 exercises because we have doubled the length to 8 bars. The structure is 7 bars of drum beats, with a 1 bar fill on bar 8, and then repeat. We are also adding in a short drum fill at the end of bar 4. Short drum fills in music help to break up repetative beats and sections and add a bit of interest to the music.

Exercise 1 is all on the hi hat and has plenty of open hi hats here and there to watch out for. Exercise 2 starts on the ride cymbal with stepped hi hats on all 4 beats of the bar, and then switches to the hi hats on bars 5-7 for some practice of switching your lead hand between the hi hat and ride.

Video Demonstration for Sheet 7

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4 Blues Drum Beats and Fills Exercises – Sheet 6 – 40 Beats and Fills Book 2

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Here is Exercise Sheet 6 from 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2.

All of the 4 beats and fills exercises are in 6/8 time signature and the emphasis is naturally on beat 1 and 4. In the drum beats, the first beat of the bar usually has a bass drum and beat 4 of the bar usually has a strong snare drum. 6/8 means that there are 6 8th notes per bar.

This is how the emphasis on 1 and 4 looks like if you see them in bold:

1 2 3 4 5 6

On exercise 4, you can see dotted quarter notes (dotted crotchets) in the drum fill on bar 4. The dotted quarter notes each last for one and a half beats, which is the equivalent of half a bar each in this 6/8 time signature. If you think about trying to count these without prior knowledge of playing in 6/8 time, it can throw you off a bit, but if you think about the pulse of the bar (2 pulses per bar, on beats 1 and 4) then they really only feel like they are 1 beat each, along with the pulse.

Video Demonstration for Sheet 6


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Musical Theatre Drum Beats and fills – Sheet 5 – 40 Beats and Fills Book 2

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Here is Exercise Sheet 5 from 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2.

Musical Theatre drumming generally has elements of swing, jazz, big band, blues, pop and rock. Unlike jazz music – which also has the swung hi hats – there is often a prominant snare on beats 2 and 4. Sometimes the time signature changes to 3/4, 2/4 and 6/8. Much of theatre style drumming is played with swing and therefore we use many fills with triplets, because they fit in with the swing rhythm easily.

The drum beats on Exercise 3 are similar to those grand finale type songs where they are a slow to medium speed. For this, perhaps you can imagine the cliché stage show of linked arms and kicking out of the legs together in time with the music (the snare on beats 2 and 4).

Video Demonstration for Sheet 5


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In Depth Drag Technique Video Demonstration

We also look in depth on the drag technique in the video during the Exercise 3 drum fill. The video shows the correct technique for performing the bounced drag, including how to hold the stick and how to control the bounces by using varying amounts of pressure to acheive the desired bounce frequency and length.

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Drum beats and drum fills in different time signatures – Sheet 4 – 40 Beats and Fills Book 2

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Here is Exercise Sheet 4 from 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2.

The drum beats and drum fills are played in different time signatures (3/4, 5/4 and 2/4), as well as changing to and from the usual 4/4 bar length.

Time Signature Changes: “Do not panic – they’re quite easy”, as I say in the video!

The time signatures are not too hard And sometimes you don’t even need to worry about counting them. There are situations where you might need to count them and they might be harder depending on what is contained in the bars, but thes have been written for newcomers to time signatures in mind, so there are no real suprises – it’s meant to be a straightforward introduction.

On exercise 3, I have taken away the stepped hi hat so it’s 3 way coordination. The stepped hi hat is included on exercise 3 with the 5/4 bar, so there’s an added challenge there.

Video Demonstration

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