A blog to help with learning and teaching Drums. Written by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Books.
★ 16 Drum Beats for use in drum lessons or for self taught drummers.
★ Printable PDF
★ Try the Hi Hats slightly open for a heavy sound.
★ You could play the Hi Hats closed but change some of them to open Hi Hats
★ You could change the Hi Hats into Ride Cymbals, Floor Toms or Crash Cymbals
★ You could also combine beats into one exercises, such as exercise 1-2 or exercise 1-4 all in one go.
★ Try playing through all 16 exercises once each in one go without stopping or making any mistakes!
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.
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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.
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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).
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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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.
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Here is Exercise Sheet 3 from 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2.
The drum beats and drum fills are all in a 6/8 time signature. We will be putting emphasis on the beats 1 and 4 of the bar, which is standard for 6/8 drum beats. The counting should be 1 2 3 4 5 6 for 8th notes, and for 16th notes, you could count 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 +. This is unlike 4/4, where the 1 2 3 4 is counting the quarter notes, rather than the 8th notes.
We are playing in a blues style in this sheet, although you could also hear these beats in other styles such as Pop, Jazz and Musical Theatre.
As you can see in the video, some of the exercises are quite fun when played quickly. Do start slowly and correctly though, because those fills could sound messy if they are not played with accuracy.
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Here is page 7 inside the book (40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2). This sheet includes 4 drum beat and drum fill exercises with stepped hi hats on all 4 beats of the bar. The right hand is playing the ride cymbal and the left foot is playing the stepped hi hat (reverse if left handed).
As I say in the video, remember to always read a little bit ahead or glance to see what’s coming up when you are playing so you don’t get caught out by the drum fills. Reading and playing music is similar to driving a car. You need to drive the bit of the road that you are on (i.e. the current bar), but you also need to look ahead to see if there are any hazards (e.g. accents, drags, ghost notes, drum fills, complicated drum beats), drastic changes in the road such as a sharp corner (e.g. section changes), signs for a complicated junction (e.g. 1st and second time repeats), or for road diversions (e.g. D.S. al Coda).
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Here is part 3 of inside the book: 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2. We have 4 exercises, consisiting of drum beats and drum fills, with 4 way coordination. The stepped hi hat plays on every exercise, so we are using both feet and both hands.
This is the first exercise sheet of the book, after the warm up, and it includes the first 4 of the 40 beats and fills exercises. This sheet feels like an extention of the warm up sheet for the first 3 exercises, and they could be used as such, and then by exercise 4 it feels like the start of the type of exercise you may also hear in a song somewhere. This is because the difficulty level needed not to start too high, so it is a slight progression from the warm up page.
Here is a video demonstration for Sheet 1 – 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2:
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Here is part 2 of inside the book: 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2.
This sheet is a warm up sheet for the drum kit, which includes 4 way coordination. The stepped hi hat and bass drum provide the parts for the feet, to play along with the hand patterns consisting of quarter notes, eigth notes and sixteenth notes.
This warm up sheet could be used at the start of a practice session before going straight into the exercises in the book, as it prepares you for the kind of things to come in the 40 beats and fills exercises. It could also be used as a seperate warm up exercise for something else. By the end of the sheet, you should feel warmed up and ready to get stuck into whatever you would like to work on next. Follow the tuition video below for how to play this sheet.
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Here is part 1 of inside the book of “40 Beats and Fills Exercises Book 2“.
As you can see in the featured image, this post is showing you how to read the drum notation in the book. This is going to to be quite hard to understand without any prior knowledge or tuition, but I have made a video (see below) that shows you which drums are which and how to read and play the swing, rests, basic notes, and time signatures.
Here are all of the drum voices and notation markings on the sheet: crash cymbal, open hi hat, accent, ride cymbal, closed hi hat, tom 1 (small tom), tom 2 (medium tom), snare drum, floor tom, bass drum, stepped hi hat, cross stick snare drum, triplet swing, 3/4 bar, 5/4 bar, 6/8 bar, 4/4 bar, crotchet rest, quaver rest, quaver, crotchet.
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