Series: Introduction to Drumming: The Basics

None of the lesson in this series have been reviewed.

Below are the descriptions for each of the lessons included in the series:

• 1-How to Play the Drums: Basic Equipment

  This video tutorial is a general overview of basic drumming equipment. In this first lesson, Jim reviews basic equipment used by drummers, what to look for in equipment, why different drummers use different types of sticks, which sticks are appropriate for which types of drums, the use of a practice pad, etc. This is a fantastic primer for someone who is completely new to drumming and looking to get started.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 2-How to Play the Drums: The Grip

  The most important thing for a drummer or percussionist to learn is the correct way to hold the sticks. No matter whether you are working on drum kit or practise pad, and no matter what exercise you are doing, you should always be working on improving your basic grip and technique. This lesson will show you how to find the correct Matched Grip, and it will walk through common do's and don'ts of grip that you should be aware of.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 3-How to Play the Drums: First Strokes

  Once your teacher has shown you how to hold and move the sticks properly, it is a good idea to learn some basic rudiments. So, what is a rudiment? Rudiments are simple combinations of notes which we use often when playing drums. Drummers often learn and practice these separately from the music. Quite often, the simpler rudiments are also the most important, so even if you think a rudiment is easy, don’t stop working on it. Rudiments covered in this lesson incorporate single strokes, double strokes and triple strokes. It is a good idea to practice all of these rudiments both loudly and softly.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 4-How to Play the Drums: Stroke Types

  There are essentially three main types of stroke - The “Piston stroke”, the “Down stroke” and the “Up stroke”. It is a good idea to be familiar with these strokes and their differences before using them to play rudiments and music.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 5-How to Play the Drums: Reading Notes & Rhthyms

  Rhythms are made up from different notes. The different types of notes have different lengths, and its these lengths which control what the rhythms will sound like. Shorter notes will sound faster than longer notes because each one lasts for a shorter amount of time. This does not mean that the music is faster when the notes are shorter - it just sounds faster. Once we decide on the tempo (this is the musical word for speed) for the music - each bar lasts for the same amount of time. We can fill that time with lots of short notes, one or two long notes, or some of each.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 6-How to Play the Drums: Accents

  This special symbol which looks a bit like a sideways triangle, is called an accent. When we put the accent mark above a note we call that note an accented note, or simply an accent. The accent is played louder than all the other notes surrounding it. To begin with it is a good idea to practise with really loud accents and really soft strokes for all the other notes. Remember your stroke types. All accents will be either loud piston strokes, or or down strokes. All other notes will either be soft piston strokes, or up strokes.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 7-How to Play the Drums: The Paradiddle Family

  Paradiddle rudiments are a family of rudiments that are all based on the single paradiddle, which is a combination of 8 notes. The single paradiddle has an accent on the first of each sub-group of four notes in the paradiddle. In this lesson, Jim will walk through the single paradiddle, the double paradiddle and the triple paradiddle. These are distinguished from each other by the number of accented notes in each.

  When playing paradiddle rudiments, pay special attention to accents. Remember to make the accented notes loud and play them from the elbow. All the other notes, including the “diddle” (or double stroke) are tap strokes, and are played with the wrists and fingers.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 8-How to Play the Drums: Quavers

  This lesson covers the Quaver, a particular type of note. A quaver is half of a crotchet (or it is an eighth note whereas a crotchet is a quarter note). Because quavers and quaver rests are half the length of crotchets, it takes twice as many of them to fill a bar. Remember there are four beats/crotchets in each bar, so that means that a bar can also be composed of eight quavers. If two quavers next to each other are part of the same beat, we will usually join their tails together to make a thick, straight line. We call this line a beam, and joining notes into groups like this is called beaming, or sometimes grouping.

  Given that a crotchet is a single beat, it follows that it takes two quavers to make a single beat. Thus, counting with quavers varies from the counting with crotchets (one and two and...for quavers versus one - two...for crotchets). This lesson will show you how the quaver is shown, what it looks like as a rest, what quavers look like when joined together, etc. Additionally, you will walk through exercises to familiarize yourself with quavers as well as to get used to incorporating both crotchets and quavers. Once you have mastered the reading of crotchets and quavers together, you will be ready to start reading some basic rhythms on the drum kit.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 9-How to Play the Drums: Drum Kit Intro

  Overview: This lesson covers the basics of a drum set. This will include an introduction of the different parts of the drum kit (bass drum, snare drum or practice pad, high-hat or ride cymbal, crash cymbal, tom 1, tom 2, floor tom, etc). Each of the parts of the drum kit is indicated in a different way on music for drummers, and this is reviewed in this lesson, as well. Once you learn the pieces, you'll go through a basic drum set introductory exercise to practice how to read rhythm for the drum kit. This exercise will only include quarter notes (crotches) and eighth notes (quavers) as well as their associated rests.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

  The two exercises included in the full version of this lesson will help familiarize a new player with the locations of the different parts of the drum set, as well as start building muscle memory to help facilitate more advanced techniques covered in later lessons.

• 10-How to Play the Drums: Accented Quavers

  This video tutorial goes over more work with quavers, crotchets and the drum kit. First, we'll start by learning about quavers with accents. Additionally, we will begin combining our hands by just using the high-hat, bass drum and snare drum. We sit at the drum kit so the right foot is on the bass drum pedal, the left hand plays the snare drum, and the right hand crosses over the top of the left, and plays the high-hat. To get accustomed to this type of coordination, a exercises that involve quavers on the high-hat are included.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 11-How to Play the Drums: Rock Beats

  Now that we have started to develop some control and co-ordination of the hands, it is time to start learning to play some beats. In this lesson, you will start to learn how to play some basic and popular rock beats. These beats are not only an easy introduction to the drum kit, but are actually the most popular beats that are used in pop songs we hear every day on the radio. This lesson will go through eight different common rock beats that any drummer should practice. As you go through, the beats will become more complex (integrating rests, integrating different bass/snare combinations, missing bass/snare on beat one of the bar, etc)

  In several of the examples, the bass and snare drums have periodic 'rests.' These rests don't, however, apply to the high-hat in these examples. The high hat has eight straight quavers for every one of these beats. It is really a timekeeper for you. The idea is to put the high hat on auto pilot and focus on getting the correct bass/snare rhythms. Try first playing the bass/snare part (foot and left hand) without the high hat for every beat.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 12-How to Play the Drums: Flam Rudiments

  The “Flam” is a very important and widely used rudiment, both on the drum kit and on snare drum in marching bands etc. There is a whole family of “Flam Rudiments” which are rudiments that have flams in them. We will just learn the most simple ones here. This is the second family of rudiments that Jim has taught us (the other being the Paradiddle family of rudiments).

  Flams use a special type of note called a “Grace note” or “Ornament”. A grace note is included in the music written in very small print just before the main accented note, which is much bigger. The grace note is of course played extremely softly. In fact it should be as soft as you can make it and effectively blended into the note it is attached to, with the stick only just above the pad or drum. A grace note has no rhythmic value of its own, and you cannot play a grace note by itself. It must be attached to a main note. It is sometimes called an “ornament” because it is just there to make the main note sound prettier. The grace note is played just before the main note. They are so close together though, that they are almost at the same time (together, they should sound like flam and not like fuh-lam).

  In addition to learning about how flams should sound and what they are, Jim will also show us how you play flams, flam taps and inverted flam taps.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

• 13-How to Play the Drums: Drum Kit Solo 1

  Now that we can play some simple rock beats, its time to put them together and play some real music. Our first drum kit solo has a few basic rock beats and also a few notes on the tom toms. Be especially careful to count the rests correctly. This solo is called Four Steps One, and includes flams, which were learned in a previous lesson (http://www.mindbites.com/lesson/1632). In this solo, we also see a “repeated section” for first time. The repeated section is like a musical bracket, and is the bars played between the double bar lines with the double dots, as shown in the supplemental file. This section is played twice in a row (repeated) before going on to the end section.

  This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.