Guitar Drums and Bass performance of ‘Indecisive’ – Rockschool Grade 3 Piece

Many of my students have learned this piece and passed their exams. It’s an enjoyable piece to play with lots of energy and it’s deceptively hard to perform the whole song without mistakes.

The videos were recorded using a phone camera and a Zoom HD1 microphone.

I think these performances would get a fairly good mark out of 20 in an exam. Maybe 19 out of 20 each. I think the guitar performance was probably the strongest out of the 3, as there were small misakes in the others. But overall, I hope this is a good demo of the song and a good chance for students to see how the songs are played by each instrument, and give examples of the type of solos you could play in the song.

HAIM uses Bass Drum, Toms and Rims to interesting effect in this supurb live music video

The drums in this video are towards the end of the song, but if you have time, watch it from the start because the drums have more effect when you’ve got into the song.

When you hear layered drums on recordings, this is a visual representation of how these types of sounds are acheived. What you see in the video is the actual audio you hear too, much to my suprise and delight because so many other music videos are usually mimed to a studio recorded song. After tentatively reading the comments for the video, it appears to be general consensus that this ‘live version’ is better than their other studio recorded version (later released), which to me is a reference to live music being the winner over studio production.

So, enjoy this video, in all it’s glory, of a truely live recording executed supurbly.

WATCH:

7 Linear drum beats for beginners – and the Mieze·Katze drum beat

Linear drum beats, a term that I was introduced to at drum college, are made up of single drum hits only. No drums or cymbals are hit simultaneously. This leads to interesting sounding beats that can be quite hard to play after a little deviation from basic linear patterns.

Basic patterns like “Bass, Hi Hat, Snare, Hi Hat” are linear beats and this one in particular is very popular and easy. In germany, this linear rhythm is known as “Mieze Katze” or “Mie·ze·kat·ze”, which translates as “Kitty Kat”. This is something I saw on a show called ‘The moaning of life’ (see video below).

 

 

There are many many combinations you could try for linear beats, and they are a great way to use some of your rudiments, like paradiddle based rudiments. Introduce accents on certain notes to really spice things up. Have a go at these 7 linear drum beats, and then get experimenting with making up your own!

Cool music video with a large studio full of drummers playing the same beat on drum kits that light up – Sweet Nothing – Gabrielle Aplin

I saw Gabrielle Aplin live at The Ritz in Manchester on her debut album tour in 2013, so although I don’t watch many music videos, this was on my radar and the images of all the drummers lured me in. Gabrielle Aplin has released this music video ahead of her second album, which includes a room full of drummers playing light up drum along with the upbeat song. Drummers unite and watch this brilliant music video!

Also, here is the behind the scenes video:

10 Basic Rock Drum Beats

Video Lesson

In this lesson we will run through 10 popular rock drum beats. I will show you how to do variations on each beat, which will extend the contents of the sheet a lot, and give you ideas for practicing. I will also show you how they sound at slow, medium and fast speeds with a metronome. This is my first drum kit video and I am pleased to have included 2 camera angles, to show the feet. However, I was using my old phone to do this and it ran out of storage towards the end of the video, so it cuts off. Hopefully I can sort that out for future videos.

Beat 1 00:26 Beat 2 05:25 Beat 3 07:11 Quarter Note Hi Hats / Ride / Floor Tom Right Hand Pattern: 8:28 Beat 4 09:56 Beat 5 10:53 Beat 6 11:44 Metronome Tips 12:00 Beat 7 12:50 Beat 8 13:36 Hi Hat Stick Height Tips 15:01 Individual Drum Volumes / Self Mixing 15:44 Beat 9 18:30 Beat 10 20:23

About the lesson sheet

Here are 10 different rock drum beats, with notation and audio. These are for any beginners that have learned a basic drum beat, or maybe a few basic beats already and want to learn some more.

Basic rock drum beats learn drums for free

Basic drum beats should be repeated for ages to be most effective in truely learning the beats. It isn’t as useful to just read and play them. The most fun way to practice these is to jam them woth another instrument or a backing track. If you are a teacher that can play bass, guitar or piano, try this with your students if you haven’t already. Pupils can tire of repeating a drum beat on it’s own for several minutes (which is needed) but when playing along with another instrument it is fun and enjoyable to play for a while without stopping. Variation on the accompanying instrument can really add to the experience. Students can also do this on their own by putting on a song and just practicing one drum beat along with it, or finding another musician to jam grooves and drum beats with.

Drum Books with Basic Rock Beats

First Drum Book – Easy Reading Beats & Fills
Beats and Fills Drum Book – Basic Beginners
40 Beats and Fills Exercises – Ebook.