The drum rudiments A guide to Drum Rudiments Think of the drum rudiments as the “building blocks” of drumming. Their purpose is something roughly equivalent to a pianist or a guitarist learning and practicing their musical scales on their instrument. The... Read More
When you’ve got to grips with the basic form of the main drum rudiments you could try out a bit of cross-breeding. Hybrid rudiments can be a lot of fun. Take a couple of old friends of ours, the Flam and the Paradiddle. Fuse them together and you get the... Read More
The 12/8 time signature Following on from our previous article about the basics of constructing a groove in a triplet time feel, this article takes the idea a step further and suggests some ways to play grooves in the 12/8 time signature. 12/8 is an example of what is... Read More
By altering familiar drum beats using permutations and variations you can create new drum beats without a huge amount of effort. Take a drum beat or phrase you’ve got “in the bag” (one that you can play without even thinking about it), and alter it... Read More
Dynamics are an important part of playing drums. There are two basic ways to use dynamics in your playing; short dynamics that apply to a specific note, or long dynamics which apply to a series or group of notes across time. “Short” dynamics A loud note... Read More
This groove is based on the “Triceratops Triplets” idea we covered in the previous article. See the original post on Triceratops Triplets to get familiar with these. If you’ve followed through the previous post, the result is a pattern using three... Read More
This is a ‘dinosaur’ of a challenge based around groups of 3 notes, hence the name Triceratops Triplets. It is deceptively simple when broken down into its component pieces, but as these components get layered the challenge develops some interesting... Read More
Paradiddles can add a fun and unique sound to your drumming. We’re going to explore how to spice up paradiddles and move them from the practice pad onto the drum kit. A paradiddle is two single strokes then a double stroke. When paradiddles are played after each... Read More
A technical teaser with a creative twist for you this time… We’re going to combine the Bo Diddley rhythm with paradiddles – to give us “Bo Diddley Diddles”. First things first If you’ve never encountered the Bo Diddley rhythm or... Read More
A method for playing better double strokes Continuing our series of articles about drum rudiments, today we’re going to apply an interesting creative twist to the double stroke. We often get asked about technique and control, especially when it concerns playing... Read More
It’s that time of the year when we delve into the archives and pull out some of the best bits from our free online lessons. Popular topics Most viewed topic: A career in drumming Most educational topic: Drum lessons Most commented topic: Lifestyle / Practise... Read More
Triplets are groups of 3 notes. They are used in many different forms of drumming, whether constructing drum fills, solos or grooves. In this article we’re going to look at using triplets to construct a groove. Andy Burt gives us an introduction to triplets and... Read More
