A blog to help with learning and teaching Drums. Written by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Books.
The first exercise sheet was written to help my drum students build up their coordination and sticking techniques for the snare drum.
The second exercise sheet was transcribed directly from this excellent Hit Like A Girl 2017 entry video by Jenn Proos. The entire ‘sheet 2’ is what she is playing up to 30 seconds. Please watch the video below to see it:
– Drum teachers can print the book or single sheets for their students.
– Drummers can teach themselves following on from a strong basic foundation in reading and playing
Subdivisions, Counting Methods, Drum Fills, Skip Beats, 16th Note Hi Hat Accents, Double Kick Drum.
4 – Subdivision drum solo / warm up exercise
5 – 16th note counting exercises
6 – Snare drum piece with counting exercise
7 – Short fills to start a song or sections of music
8 – Bass drum skip beats
9 – Snare drum skip beats
10 – 10 rock drum beats with 16th note bass drum combinations
11 – Snare and bass drum skip beat practice beats – with open hi hats
12 – Snare and floor tom piece with sextuplets
13 – Grooves and fills piece in 6/8
14 – 10 drum fills with 6 stroke rolls
15 – 6 drum beats and drum fills exercises
16 – 10 snare drum accent exercises
17 – Part 1 – 9 drum grooves with 16th note hi hat accents
18 – Part 2 – 9 drum grooves with 16th note hi hat accents
19 – 8 beginners double kick drum beats
20 – Intermediate double kick drum beats
This ebook is a Grade 4 level compilation of 8 years of preparation work for teaching drums. It consists of drum lesson sheets that I have prepared and revised many times to be the best they can be for teaching with. To create the book I selected only the best sheets from my selection of drum sheet music lesson handouts. I printed them all out on my office floor and arranged them into a coherent order.
I have included only the sheets, rather than add lots of teaching text. This is partly to limit the amount of pages printing, and also to give teachers using the books freedom to put their own take on the lesson sheets. This will probably make it harder for self taught players, so to anyone getting stuck reading the book I would recommend building up their reading and counting knowledge online. The 16th note counting exercises on page 5 and 6 should help, and can be used when playing skip beats to help with reading and playing them.
Reading skills are really important if you are teaching yourself with this book. Further to counting 16ths like on page 5 and 6 to snare drum rhythms, you can also use them in drum beats. It’s really helpful when you learn how to do it. To give an example of counting 16ths in beats; on Page 8, Bass Drum Skip Beats, on the first bar you could count “1 & 2 & a 3 & 4 &” to help with the timing. The second bar would be counted “1 & 2 e & a 3 & 4 &”. The kick drum skips are therefore on the ‘a’ after beat 2 on the first bar, and on the second bar the skip beat kicks are on both the ‘e’ and ‘a’ after beat 2. This probably sounds complicated if you’ve never done this before. It’s how many teachers explain note placements, and it’s still how I count new beats that need working out or extra practice.
This ebook covers many of the Grade 4 elements, but it’s by no means all-encompassing. There are other ebooks that I have made for Grade 3-4 and I’m sure there will be more. This book is a leap on from “Grades 1-2 Beats & Fills Drum Book”, but there will be a Grade 3-4 beats and fills ebook soon. This book can also be used either side of these ebooks I have already created in the Grade 3-4 level: “10 Pages Of Accent Exercises With 16th Notes” and “90 Intermediate Drum Beats Focusing On The Bass Drum”.
Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons
This piece was written for a youth drumming group but it was too difficult for them as they were not quite ready in ability. I’m sure there will be plenty of people out there that will find this a good and achievable challenge.
The drum piece will require a snare drum and floor tom, so you can play it on a regular kit, but you may need to move them closer together.
Use this piece to practice your subdivisions and rudiments, to include Sextuplets, Single Stroke Four’s and Paradiddle-diddle’s.
The left foot hi hats (X below the bottom line) are actually floor tom rims, and the X on the snare drum line is snare rim.
This snare drum piece has a military sound to it.When played at 90bpm, the piece is fairly short at 45 seconds and could be learned from memory with a good amount of practice. The rhythms change often so this is not easy. The primary aim for the drummer is to sight read the sheet music whilst playing.
The first difficulty levels has cotchets and quavers, and crotchet rest. In other words, it has quarter notes, eigth notes and quarter note rests. There is one dynamic change and also some use of accents.
The second difficulty level includes crescendo dynamics and beginner to intermediate rhythms.
There are crescendos and other dynamic changes on the intermediate difficulty level, which also include buzz rolls and intermediate rhythms.
Related: Group snare drum piece with 3 difficulty levels (Piece 5, Book 1)
Related: (Premium) 10 Snare Drum Pieces – Book 1 – Levels 1-3
This snare drum piece focuses on using 8th note rests before playing an 8th note, so that the snare drum plays on the off beat. The off beats are combined with various rhythms that you would also find up to grade 2 level, consisting of 16th note, quarter note and 8th note combinations. There are also some snares with an X note head – these are to be played on the snare rim.
Related (Premium): (Premium) – 10 Snare Drum Pieces – Book 1 – Levels 1-3 (PDF ebooks)
Related: Snare Drum Piece with Basic Rhythms for Grade 1 Sight Reading
Related: 16 bar Snare Drum Exercise – with dynamics – Grade 1-2
Welcome to the second in the series of ‘Drum Exercises for Beginners – Grade 1’.
You may like to listen to the audio to help understand the sheet music.
There are short repeated exercises in the following categories, which are ideal for practicing on your own, or for using by drum teachers as part of a lesson plan.
Welcome to the first in the series of ‘Drum Exercises for Beginners – Grade 1’.
There are short repeated exercises in the following categories, which are ideal for practicing on your own, or for using by drum teachers as part of a lesson plan.
You may like to listen to the audio to help understand the sheet music.
Here we are going to use 5 breakfast rhythms in various combinations to make up the 10 exercises for the snare drum. We use the words phonetically to help play the rhythms.
These beginners snare drum exercises will help to read and play basic rhythm groupings.
This snare drum sheet is ideal for practicing the single stroke four drum rudiment and also for playing sextuplet rhythms within a piece.
The piece could be played by a group of snare drums or other drums if the players are at an intermediate level of above (at least grade 3).
There are 5 sections labeled A-E, and A is recalled at the end for a repeat. Each section should be practiced seperately and mastered before playing through the whole snare drum piece in one go.
This short snare drum piece works on a few of the fundamental subdivisions and rhythms used at grade 1 level and leading up to it. The piece consists of quarter notes, 8th notes, 16th notes and quarter note rests. The performance technique of playing on the rim of the snare is also included, where the X note head is displayed instead of the usual snare.
