The Beginners Quick Guide to Drumming

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comments at all. Please don’t be a stranger! Put “Not Spam” in the subject line

Every effort is made to ensure this manual is free from error or problems. Though I have worked long and hard to provide accurate information, I can’t take responsibility for loss or action

to any individual or corporation acting or not taking action as a result of the material presented here.

Some links in the manual may change, but I do endeavour to keep

them up to date on my website at www.learn-to-play-drums.com

Reproduction or translation of any part of this book by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without

the permission of the publisher (that is me Robert Gordon) is unlawful.

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1 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION... 5

1.1 90% of music uses these 7 basic drum beats ... 5

2 A DRUM KIT PICTURE...11

3 HOW TO USE THIS E-BOOK...14

3.1 The sound files...14

3.2 What are all those tables ?...14

4 THE 7 MAJOR DRUM BEATS ...16

4.1 8th_{Note 4/4 Rock and Pop Beat...16}

4.1.1 The Motown Train Beat...20

4.2 Quarter Note Rock...23

4.3 16th_{Note Beats – Ballards and Dance Style ...27}

4.4 Slow 16th_{note beats / Ballard beats...27}

4.5 Disco/Dance 16th_{Note Beats ...30}

4.6 Blues or 6/8 Beats...37

4.6.1 Triplets ...42

4.7 Shuffle Beats...46

4.8 Jazz Beats...52

4.8.1 Jazz Feet Co-ordination...54

5 SYNCOPATION ...57

5.1 Adding spice to your grooves with more bass drums...57

5.1.1 Bass Drum Variation 1 ...59

5.1.2 Bass Drum Variation 2...60

5.1.7 Snare Drum Syncopation...64

5.2 Syncopation in other drum beat styles ...66

5.2.1 Bass Drum Variations in a Quarter Note Beat...66

5.2.2 Bass Drum Variations in a 16th_{Note Beats...67}

5.3 Advanced Hand and Foot Syncopation...69

5.3.1 Bass Drum 16th_{Note Syncopation Variation 1 ...70}

5.3.2 Bass Drum 16th_{Note Syncopation Variation 2...71}

5.3.5 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Variation 5...72

5.3.6 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 1 ...73

5.3.7 Bass Drum 16th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 2...74

5.4 Some final words on Syncopation...77

6 USING THE HI-HAT TO GROOVE UP YOUR GROOVES ...78

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6.2 8 Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing ...81

7 HOW TO PLAY DRUM FILLS...83

7.1 Expressing yourself as a musician...83

7.2 Double Stroke and Paradiddle based fills ...88

7.2.1 Double stroke roll...88

7.2.2 Paradiddle based fills ...91

8 PLAYING SAFELY...95

8.1.1 Protect your hearing!! Use Earplugs...95

8.1.2 Sit up straight ...97

9 SOME FINAL WORDS ...99

10 APPENDIX 1 ... 102

10.1 8th_{Note Rock and Pop Beat ...102}

10.2 Motown Train Beat ...103

10.3 Quarter Note Rock Beat...104

10.4 Slow 16th Note Ballard Beat ...105

10.5 Rammstein “Seeman” Syncopation example of a 16th Note Ballard Song...107

10.6 Fast 16th note disco and dance beat...109

10.7 Fast 16th Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat and closing on beat 4+ ... 111

10.8 Fast 16th_{Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat and closing on beats 2 and 4...113}

10.9 6/8 Blues Beats...115

10.10 Basic Shuffle Beat ...116

10.11 Basic Jazz Beat ...117

10.12 Feet for the basic Jazz Beat...118

10.13 Blank Drum Tabs for copying and making your own beats up...119

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1.1 90% of music uses these 7 basic drum beats

Hi, my name is Rob Gordon and welcome to my beginners guide to drumming and how to play the 7 most popular drum beats of today.

First, many thanks for buying my drumming e-book. I hope that I deliver on all my promises to you including a full 12 months for a “no questions” refund.

I am passionate about drums and music and I hope that my passion comes through to you here in my e-book. As such, I have tried to write this book as if you where sitting in the room with me and so my writing style is rather informal. So hopefully this book is not as dry as many other drum

education books that I have bought and oh boy I have bought a lot of drum books ☺.

To help you visualise who I am and just in case you wonder what I looked like he is a picture of me with two great drummers Gregg Bissonette (Steve Vai, Van Halen and Santana) and Chris Witton (Paul McCartney and now a music producer) at the Freedie Gee drum clinic in 2003. I’m the good looking fella ☺ in the middle with Gregg on my right and Chris on my left

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Now, I have always drummed as a

• kid bashing on cardboard boxes playing along to my favourite songs;

• to having formal lessons and to taking my Guildhall School of Music

Grading's;

• to creating my own music to writing this e-book.

I love the drums, I love the beat and I love to make people dance and groove.

First, if you want even through this is an electronic book, I suggest that you print it out and put it in a notebook for easy reading and reference, whilst you are practising, but it is up to you.

Now, don’t feel that you have to try to do everything in this book at once. Of course, you can if you want to learn the beats really quickly but if you want to take your time then just work a little bit each day on each of the beats. You can make great progress by practicing a little bit every day and then be very pleasantly surprised at how far you have come. In a way this is similar to how this book was written, an hour’s writing every day for about few months and then hey presto I have written a drum book. I’ve tried to organise this book, in order of what I feel, are the most common beat first. I’ve done this so that you know which areas you should

concentrate more on to start with (e.g. the 8th note rock and pop beat to

get you started) and therefore enjoying the drums as quickly as possible. I want you to be extremely “successful” in your drumming because at the end of the day this is one of the most pleasing things to me. In having a passion for drumming, I truly hope I can help others to enjoy the drums the way I do and that has been a key motivator for me in writing this book. I hope you enjoy the book and please feel free to email with any feedack

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If you haven’t already please go and sign up to my newsletter at

http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com the sign up is in the top left

I give out lots of free drumming tips on how to improve as a drummer and of course lots of secret drumming tips ☺ from the great

drummers I take lessons from. Yes I spend a fortune on trying to get better myself and then I pass that information on via my website and newsletter to you.

With all that being said, we will hopefully have you in a few minutes or hours playing the 7 most common drum beats in modern music.

And from there you can start to play and jam with your friends and have great fun playing the drums!!!

I have been teaching drums as a hobby for about 3 years and I have found that the best way to learn is based on five core principles.

1) Learn the basic form of the 7 most popular drum beats of today and the common variations and then practice them by;

2) Tapping and playing along to the music you love on the radio or CD or iPod;

3) Learn 3 simple drum sticking rudiments to be able to play easy fills; 4) Learn stuff slowly and then and only then get faster; and

5) Play with other musicians and/or be in a band.

Now, the first principle is based on the fact that 90% of all popular western music beats are based on 7 main beats and some common

variations, if you learn them you can very very quickly get to play for fun and with others. It is one of the things that makes the drum set such an easy(ish) and assessable instrument to learn.

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All my principles are important but let me stress that principle number 4 is very very important. Please, Please, understand that practice doesn’t make perfect it makes permanent and so if you learn something wrong to start with it is 10 times harder to put in right in the future, OK ?

So learn the hand and foot co-ordination for each of the beats slowly and then get faster as you get more comfortable.

And please don’t worry if you have to learn these beats very very slowly we all have to start somewhere, remember a baby has to crawl, fall, toddle, fall, toddle, fall, walk, fall and then run

So don’t ever be hard on yourself, if it isn’t as easy as you think it should be to start with.

With a little bit of time and patience you will overcome any initial

co-ordination problems you may have and hopefully you’ll understand that that is the way you will learn and then progress forward.

There is a great saying in drumming, by Jason Bowld of Pitchshifter. “If you go half as slow at the start then you’ll get there twice as fast”.

This probably relates to life as well but it is great as a drum learning motto too.

Personally, I took forever to get comfortable playing shuffle beats slightly because you don’t hear shuffle/swing music on the radio that much

So start slow and exact, get the strokes in the right place and then start to speed up and then start to play along to the music you like which is my principle number 2.

I mean how cool is it that you can learn and practice almost all the time ☺ whilst you listen to music you like. You can’t do that with too may other instruments.

Now, one last thing before we dive in please don’t get hung up on the names of the beats. Musicians and drummers tend to use these names because

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The names are generally given by the number of times we hit the hi-hat in a

bar of music, (e.g. the 8th note rock and pop beat means we hit the hi-hat 8

times in the bar). Don’t worry I will explain all this stuff later in this ebook.

Also, don’t worry if you don’t have a drum kit yet, just pretend by taping you hands and feet on the table and floor. Once you get going and fall in love with drumming then you can go and buy a second hand acoustic or electronic drum kit and then play the real thing.

Lastly, if you do have a drum kit now and have yet to start learning to play, please read my “Playing Safely” chapter before you really start to bash away!!

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The sound files that I have created for this book are quite large and that is even after I made them into “mp3” format. So I haven’t

integrate them with the book because it would be over 20 megabytes huge, therefore you need to go to the webpage to download the zip file with all the sound files:

http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com/DrumBookAudio/DrumBookDownloadInstructions.htm

Copy this address into you web browser and follow the instruction there on how to download the files.

Alternatively, go to this link instead:

http://www.learn-to-play-drums.com/DrumBookAudio/DrumBookAudioFileIndex.htm

This page is a link to an index of all the files separately so you don’t have to download them in one go but just as you need them.

I know this is large and will take a while to download but I did this as I wanted you to have good quality sound files to hear the drum beats,

because you learn drumming with your ears as well as by playing the beats too.

And truly lastly, I have at times gone off on tangents, but to warn you I have put in a “Rob Tangent Alert” I just can’t help myself and but hey its my book and it just had to be done ☺

So here's wishing you every success in your drumming journey and I truly hope that you will enjoy this e-book as much as I have writing it

So with all that said lets go and have a look at a drum kit so you know what drums and cymbals to hit……

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So here we go this is a drum kit

Picture courtesy of Premier Drum Company Ltd. The best makers of drums in the world in my humble opinion.

If you have always wondered what all those drums on a drum kit are the picture above is just to show you the drums and their names, if you are a little worried about what they are and how they sound then just go to my website where I have pictures of the drums and the sounds they make when you hit them.

The three core drums and cymbals are:

1. The hi-hat played with your right hand and left foot;

2. The snare played with your left foot; and

3. The bass drum played with your right foot.

If you are left handed and wanted to learn with you left hand as your main leading hand on the hi hat just reverse in your head where I say right to left. Alternatively, email me and I will send you the left hand version of this book

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Now here is a picture of drum kit from behind

Picture courtesy of Premier Drum Company Ltd.

Anyway, like I say don’t worry if you don’t have a drum kit yet. You can learn all you need to start by just tapping on your legs or the table top. However, if you do want to actually hold some sticks and hit something then I would suggest some sticks and a "practice pad" and here is mine as an example sitting on my back lawn on a warm spring day ☺

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This pad is made or rubber and is inexpensive to begin drumming on ☺. It is also reasonably quiet!!

I use my practice pad lots for practicing different sticking patterns and rudiments. It actually lives in my bedroom and when I am waiting for say a bath to run I tap away for 10 mins. I find that playing a little often has over the year helped my playing loads.

Also, using a practice pad really makes you focus on your technique. I have mine in front of a mirror so I can see how my hand, arms and of course sticks are moving. However, as a beginner drummer you can concentrate on getting comfortable with the basic beats and fills ( based on the 3 easy rudiments) at slow to medium tempos without the need for lots of

technique to start with.

However, going forward as you start to play faster ( and like all drummers you will) it will be time for you to best find a local drum teacher to show you basic moeller or push pull hand/wrist movements.

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3.1 The sound files

Through out the book you will see these references.

100 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 120bpm

These are my references to the sound files I have created along with the book.

Listen to these files to hear what I mean. They are MP3 files so they will play in any MP3 compatible player like Realplayer or Windows Media Player or iTunes. They are not directly linked to the sound file themselves, so clicking on them will NOT make them play

3.2 What are all those tables ?

To make this e-book as easy for a new drummer as possible, I have laid the beats out in, I hope, in an easy to understand table format rather than in drum music notation. Trust me, you can learn that in the future ☺

For example, here is the first drum beat for you to learn in the next

chapter. It is the classic and standard 8th Note Rock/Pop beat.

Traditional Count 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + Right Hand on hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X Right Foot on bass drum X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — —

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The first row is the count of the beat. This is what you count out loud or in you head to help your timing and limb co-ordination

You see to be a drummer you need to be able to count some, not much, just a little. ☺

The reason is to help you keep track of where you are in a bar of music and to help synchronise your hands and feet.

Now for this e-book you only need to be able to count in a couple of ways.

Listen to the sound file -

101 - 8th note beat count

Hopefully, this is pretty straight forward.

The second row represents your right hand and traditionally that hand holds the stick that hits the hi hat. (Hi-hat sound)

Have a look back at the picture to see where the hi hat is.

The third row represents your left hand and traditionally that holds the stick that hits the snare drum. The snare drum has that high pitched crack sound. (Snare drum sound)

The fourth row represents your right foot and traditionally that is the foot used to press the bass drum pedal to cause the beater to hit the big old bass drum, boom boom. (Bass drum sound)

The fifth row represents your right foot and traditionally that is the foot used to press and release the hi hat pedal and which causes the two hi hat cymbals to open and close. (Hi-hat opening and closing sound)

Now I am sure that you will have worked this out for yourself but I say it anyway:

• “X” means to play a downward stroke and hit the drum

• And “—“ means to hold your left foot down on the hi hat pedal and

so keeping the hi hats closed together

• And “O“ means to release the hi hat pedal so that the hi hats open.

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4.1

8

th

Note 4/4 Rock and Pop Beat

This is by far the most popular drum beat in modern western music. Every musician from Led Zeppelin to the Spice Girls have made music and records that use this beat. You will hear this beat or a variation of it all the time on the radio, satellite and TV

Why? Probably, because musicians are too lazy to use other beats and musicians have become so used to writing songs in 4/4 that they can’t be bothered to use other beats. They also use all the same chord

progressions so that a lot of music sounds similar, but that’s for another day ☺

100 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 120bpm

Well, this is how to play this basic beat 8th Note 4/4 rock and pop beat.

It is called an 8th note beat as you play 8 strokes on the hi-hat per bar of

music and the bar has 4 quarter note beats within it, shown by the beats 1 2 3 4, which you play on the bass and snare drums.

Technically a bar of music (or measure if you are in the US) is a

segment of time defined as a given number of beats (4 in this case) of

Count 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + Right Hand on hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X Right Foot on bass drum X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — —

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But hey, don’t get hung up on this, if this make no sense just move on, it will

one day, trust me ☺ I just had to put it in to be able to explain why an 8th

note beat is an 8th note beat, OK.

As I said above “X” means to play a downward stroke and hit and “—“ means to hold the hi hats closed together with you left foot pressed down on the hi hat pedal.

When you play this you need to count the beat as follows:

101 - Basic 8th note rock beat count

To play this beat do the following one step at a time and then when you are comfortable move onto the next step:

1) Play (and count out aloud) with your right hand a continuous beat of “1

+ 2 + 3 + 4 +” ;

2) Play your left hand on the beats of 2 and the 4 at the same time as

your right hand on these beats; and

3) Play your right foot on the 1 and the 3 as the same time as your right

hand.

Have that going and you are playing an 8th note rock and pop beat. If you

have never done that before many congratulations as you have now become a drummer!!!!

If this is hard, just go very slowly to start with. As I have said, there is no shame in that, OK? ☺

Here is this beat at a nice easy paced 60 bpm for you to play along too:

102 - Basic 8th note rock beat at 60 bpm

Now once you have this going you can begin to practice all the time by

playing along to your favourite 8th note rock music.

Here are some examples of 8th note rock and pop beats for you to play

along too. I have listed these as, I think they are reasonable easy to play along with. The songs here are many and varied and in no particularly order of greatness, but just examples of music that I have jammed and tapped to

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Artist Title Drummer

Pink We can work it out” Sad

song Let’s Get The Party Started - Well actually most of the songs from the “Just Like a Pill” and “I’m not Dead” albums

I think Travis Barker of Blink 182 drummer fame plays on most of the “Just Like a Pill” album. The “I’m not album” uses lots of different drummers including Shawn Pelton and Mlyious Johnson

Robbie Williams Most of his songs but particularly favourites of mine include Angels, Let Me Entertain You , Rock DJ, Chris Sharrock is Robbie’s live drummer but depending on the album a number of session drummers played.

Eminem Song For The Moment,

Stan and Lose Yourself

Don’t know and if you do please let me know

Live Lighting Crashes, I Alone

Sly and the Family stone

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Supernova,

AC/DC Back in Black, Highway to

Hell

Phil Rudd

Anastacia Sick and Tired and most

of the songs on the “Anastasia” album

Josh Freese

Scissor Sisters Take your mama Paddy Boom

(What a great name for a drummer!)

Coolio featuring L.V Gangsta’s Paradise Most likely a drum machine or loop but I don’t know who programmed it

Genesis Tonight, Tonight

Invisible Touch

The Great Great Phil Collins

Charlotte Church Crazy Chick* Don’t know and

if you do please let me know

Midnight Oil Most of their songs, but

some of my favourites are

Beds are Burning, Blue Sky Mining*, Short Memories, Bedlam

Bridge, Outbreak of Love

Rob Hurst

Girls Aloud Love Machine Probably a

session

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who I don’t know

Aerosmith Dream On, Amazing,

Don’t Want To Miss A Thing and the classic “Walk This Way” A piece of rock and hip-hop music history

Joey Kramer

Gnarls Barkley Crazy Most likely a

drum machine programmed by either Gnarls or Barkley ☺ The Thompson Twins

Hold Me Now (Sorry couldn’t resist a classic 80’s favourite of mine, she left me you know )

Don’t know and if you do please let me know

INXS New Sensation John Farriss

Rammstein Engel, Mein Heinz Brent

and Mutter

Christoph Schneider

Paul Weller Peacock Suit, Wildwood,

Broken Stones, Come on lets go

“The Mighty” Steve White ☺

The list is in fact endless!!!!!

4.1.1 The Motown Train Beat.

Now I’ll explain that the songs with a * next to them above such as the song Crazy Chick, amazing switch in places to what is called the “Motown

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It is still an 8 note rock beat but you play the snare drum on all the quarter note beats of “1 2 3 4” as follows:

The song New Sensation by INXS does exactly the same!!! It starts as a

standard 8th note rock beat in the verses and then changes to the Motown

Train Beat in the choruses.

It is still an 8th note rock/pop beat as we are playing 8 notes on the high

hat, but here we are strongly accenting the beats of 1 2 3 and 4 by playing the snare drum on all of these beats. This has the effect of speeding up the beat by making it seem more faster, intense and urgent without

actually changing the real speed. This is a common technique and is used by musicians and producers the world over to achieve that affect.

Now, that you know this, listen out for it and you’ll begin to notice the large number of songs that use this technique. For example I have listened to the great song “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies and never realised it does exactly the same thing until I was listening whilst writing this ☺ Amazing, it shows that you never stop learning and with the words “It will be two days till we say we’re sorry” I’ll move on.

The Motown train beat is called the Motown Train beat as it was frequently used by the great Motown drummers such as Benny Benjamin, Uriel Jones and Richard “Pistol” Allen. They bought the beat from the drum beats used to accompany a lot of church “Gopsel” music. Benny, Uriel and Richard

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + Right Hand on hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X X X Right Foot on bass drum X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — —

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played on many of the Motown hits for the likes of the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell and Stevie Wonder.

Now, if you have an interest in Motown music, then I can’t recommend highly enough the DVD “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” it is a history of the house band that played on the hundreds of Motown records

recorded in the 60’ and 70’s. For this DVD, they have got those guys and girls that are still with us together again playing some of those great Motown songs, so you can really see how they did it. It is truly and absolutely, brilliant.

Now the Motown train beat is in fact a beat that links to our next beat the Quarter note rock beat, which is in the next chapter.

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4.2 Quarter Note Rock

Quarter note beats are the staple grooves of many hard rock and heavy metal bands, but also turn up in many other musical settings such as

Rhythm and Blues (RnB), Hip Hop, Electronic Dance, and Rock Dance music.

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 Right Hand on the hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X X X Right Foot on the bass drum X X X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — —

When you play this you need to count the beat as follows:

201 - Basic quarter note rock beat count

Here is a quarter note rock beat.

202 - Basic quarter note rock beat

Examples of Quarter note rock are again many and varied, however,

Quarter note beats tend to be used less often than 8th note beats as the

main groove through out the whole song.

I tend to hear them in songs as a point of change in the feel of the song usually in the chorus or bridge. In the list below songs such as like Crazy

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Chick, New Sensation or Voodoo Child go from 8 note to quarter note to change the vibe of the song.

Like, the change to a Motown train beat changing to a quarter note beat is another common technique to change the “feel” in a song and usually

coincide with other instruments dropping out of the mix and/or a change in the main chord patterns played by the guitarist/keyboardist.

Again, the change to a quarter note beat in the song is a examples of where the drumming enhances and complements the “musicality” of the song.

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Led Zeppelin Communications

Breakdown, Rock and Roll**

John Bonham

Iron Maiden Prowler and

Sanctuary**

Nicko McBrain

The Blues Brother Gimme Some Loving Willie Hall

Foreigner Cold As Ice Dennis Eliott

Faithless Mass Destruction* Most likely a drum

machine

Free Alright Now Simon Kirke

INXS New Sensation Jon Farriss

Foo Fighters Best of You Taylor Hawkins

Lenny Kavitz Going to go my way Cindy Blackman

Rouge Trader Voodoo Child Cameron McGlinchey

White Stripes Behind the Door Meg White

LaBelle Lady Marmalade

Rihanna SOS (Has the 80’s classic Tainted Love sampled throughout)

Most likely a drum machine

Soft Cell Tainted Love 808 Drum Machine

Nelli Furtido Maneater Most likely a drum

machine

Queen We Will Rock You Roger Taylor

*Faithless, Nelli Furtido, Rihanna show you don’t have to be a heavy rock band to have fast or slow quarter note rock music as the groove in your

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music. Faithless are in the electronic dance music genre ☺ and they write great thought provoking lyrics too They are great and I love them!!

**A number of Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin songs are really very fast 8th

note rock beats but as a beginner they are good to play along too as practice for quarter note rock, that is until your right hand is strong and

faster enough to play fast 8th note rock.

In fact there does come a point when the speed of a song is just to fast to

play 8th notes on the high hat with one hand and so you can keep the same

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4.3

16

th

Note Beats – Ballards and Dance Style

16th note beats fall, to me into two main categories Fast and Slow.

Fast 16th note beats tend to use both hands on the hi-hat to play the 16th

notes and slower 16th note beats will tend to use just the single leading

hand playing the hi-hat or ride cymbal. This change in technique makes a big difference to the feel and the vibe of the groove. Logically, it shouldn’t but the change in technique of one hand vs two does. Maybe my technique isn’t good enough ☺ something more for me to practice.

Here are the counts for 16th note beats.

First the traditional count as I was taught

301 - 16

th

note beat count traditional

And second the more modern count you will hear

302 - 16

th

note beat count modern

4.4 Slow 16

th

note beats / Ballard beats

These are played at slower tempos around 60 to 90 bpm than the 8th note

and quarter note beats above. The 16th notes are usually played with one

hand on the hi hat playing all the 16th notes, but can be played with two

hands alternating

At 60 to 90 bpm, you can use just one arm however when if the tempo goes

up much faster your hand and arm start to fall off !!! That is why fast 16th

note dance groves are played with a single stroke roll, but we will come on to that next,

Here is a slow 16th note beat

303 -

Slow 16

th

Note ballard beat

Slow 16th note are also called “Ballad Grooves” because they tend to

accompany ballard type songs. Think Loniel Richie, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion who sung the theme from the film Titanic being a good example of what I mean.

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Traditional Count 1 e + & 2 e + & Right Hand on hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X Right Foot on the bass drum

X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — — Traditional Count 3 e + & 4 e + & Right Hand on hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X Right Foot on the bass drum

X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal

— — — — — — — —

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Lionel Ritchie Stuck On You Probably JR

Robinson (Great LA Session drummer)

Charles Wright and the Watts 103rd Rhythm Street Band.

Express Yourself** James Gadson

Bill Withers Use me** James Gadson

Rammstein (Yes heavy rock bands can do 16th_note

ballards too)

Seeman Christoph Schneider

Genesis Throwing it all away Phil Collins

Robbie Williams Advertising Space Chris Sharrock

Frankie goes to Hollywood

The Power of Love* Peter Gill

* Not 16th note all the way through the song

**These two songs will probably be to start with too fast for you to play with one hand. They are also pretty funky as James Gadson was a seriously funky drummer. You can use these as play alongs for the next section on

faster 16th note grooves.

Now lets move onto fast 16th note beats and the whole wide world of dance

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4.5 Disco/Dance 16

th

Note Beats

First fast 16th note is music is commonly known as disco (for those over 30)

and dance music (for those under 30) ☺

304 - 16

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Note Disco/Dance Beat

So if any of you have taken any aerobics classes (OK, maybe not for most of you boys out there) or more likely been to a disco/club this will be the main type of music played.

Why?

Because it is played a higher tempo and that fits well with people dancing by giving a sense of urgency and speed to the song to get you up on the dance floor shaking that body and booty of yours!!

Most 16th note dance grooves have a tempo up and around 130 to 150 beats

per minute (BPM).

Here in the UK, dance music is huge and so we have a lots of dance music on the radio. We also have lots of hip hop too but that is for another e-book and day……

Anyhow, as we have lots of 16th note grooves it of course makes it sound

very natural to our British ears!!

Now dance music is played by playing the 16notes in the bar on the hi hat

with a single stroke roll.

What is a single stroke roll I hear you ask ?

The single stroke roll is the foundation stroke of all drumming and is simply a right hand stroke and then a left hand stroke repeated again and again and again.

A single stroke roll is the first drum rudiment you will ever learn if you go straight to a drum teacher and be taught and it goes like this

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305 - Single Stroke Roll

I have alternated this between the snare and high tom so you can hear the

difference and the beat in the roll. Count out the 16th note beat to get the

feel of the beat.

And the tab for playing it

Traditional Count 1 e + & 2 e + &

RightHand X X X X

Left Hand X X X X

Traditional Count 3 e + & 4 e + &

RightHand X X X X

Left Hand X X X X

And here is the same roll at 120bpm

305a - 120 BPM - Single stroke roll alternate drum

which is more up to a dance music speed.

Pretty simple on paper, but trust me you will practice this forever to make it sound smooth and balanced!!

Now to play this groove you play the single stroke roll on the hi hat and then more the right hand down on the backbeats of 2 and 4 to hit the snare, this gives the groove its “back beat”. The bass drum is then played on the 1 and 3 to give the “downbeat”

A Rob Tangent Alert

A little side point here is that a lot of dance music is created electronically, that is the beat is programmed into a computer sequencer or drum machine or sampled and then modified by the musician as required for their own music needs and wants.

This means that sometimes the programmed beats can be impossible to play a as four limbed drummer (unless you are Zorro who has played with Bobby Brown, Lenny Kravitz and is an independent drummer extraordinaire or

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Guestlove, the drummer with The Roots who have a Seriously Funky Hip Hop Rap style).

It is cool to know that “Dance Music” has developed into many genres such as Trance, Hip Hop, Jungle, Drum n Bass, Trip Hop and Dancehall. All with their own particular drum sounds and formats.

Also, a lot of music has over dubs, that is extra hits or sounds added in addition to the main drum lines at other times. This can obviously make them harder to play.

A good example of this is “Ain’t Nobody” by Rufus (Chaka Khan was the lead singer) with the drums played by JR Robinson, I read he played the hi-hat line in one take and the snare and drum in another take.

Taking this theme even further a number of songs by Moby on his “Play” and “18” albums, have per Moby upwards of 12 to 16 tracks that are playing drums, 3 tracks with bass drums, 4 snare tracks etc layer upon each other. In some ways a human drummer just can’t compete here, so don’t, I guess would be my wise words.

Lastly, don’t misunderstand me here I think that this is perfectly good musicianship and we as drummers and musicians too should not “bemoan” musicians that do this, if that is their artistic expression: good on them I say!!

But when they need to play live that’s when a great human drummer can make the “electronic” drums great in a live setting. Go and listen to the

great electronic music from The Bays with Andy Gangadeen playing drums

and best of all, all their music is free.

And if it tickles your fancy make music like Moby and then hire great drummers to come and play with you live instead ☺ and then you will earn the copyright royalties etc, but that is whole other story for another e-book.

Anyhow, enough of my ramblings…..

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Traditional Count 1 e + & 2 e + & Right Hand on hi hat X X X (Right hand moves to hit the snare drum) X Left Hand on hi hat X X X X Right Foot X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — — Traditional Count 3 e + & 4 e + & Right Hand on hi hat X X X (Right hand move to the snare drum) X Left Hand on hi hat X X X X Right Foot X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — —

In 16th note dance music, the bass drum tends to be play on every beat,

that is beat 1 2 3 and 4. This is generally known as playing “4 on the floor”. The “4 on the floor” groove is part of what makes dance music danceable

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The bass drum playing on each beat (or quarter note to give it is proper name) gives the dancers a really strong reference point of where the beat is for them to dance along to.

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note four on the floor beat

You will also find that 8th note rock beats that are more dance rock songs

will also use the “4 on the floor” bass drum pattern to increase their dancability factor.

The song Voodoo Child by Rouge Traders being a current classic example (if you are reading this in ten years time then this song will be an old classic example)

Anyhow, the song is generally an 8th note rock dance type song, but in the

chorus and pre chorus the 8th notes on the hi-hat drop out leaving a very

strong and danceable “4 on the floor” bass drum, which is to us drummers (yes, you are a drummer now) is a straight ¼ note rock beat.

You need to listen to the song if this doesn’t make sense.

Now if you have mastered the co-ordination above the next thing do is play

and jam along to 16th note songs.

The reason I say that is, and this is my personal experience, as 8th note

beats are so prevalent and everywhere that you will find that you will get hold of them quite quickly and be playing them in no time at all.

16th note beats are less common and so you don’t get so much “tapping”

practice time!! Also, tapping 16th note songs is even more annoying to

friends and family than 8th note songs ☺! Trust me, I have the bruises to

prove it

The beauty of practicing 16th note beats mean that you are using your left

hand equally with your right, for a change, and working on the left is always a tougher thing to do and so being “normal” people we tend to move back to the things we can do more easily and that for us drummers mean generally

tapping along to 8th note songs.

Here are examples of fast sixteen note beats (not all of which have opening and closing hi hats).

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Again these are in no particularly order of greatness just examples of

music that I have jammed and tapped to over the years to improve my 16th

note beats and grooves.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers

The Zephyr song Chad Smith

Around the world Chad Smith

Fatboy Slim Weapon of choice

Natiale Imbruglia Torn

Hootie and the blowfish

Only want to be with you

The Sugar Hill Gang

Rappers Delight Keith Le Blanc

KC and the Sunshine band

That’s the way I like it

Robert Johnson

Sugarbabes Stronger

Faithless Insomnia* My guess is a drum

machine

Franz Ferdinand Take me out** Paul Thomson

Faithless Mass Destruction* My guess is a drum

machine

Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag* Pete Brown

James Brown Funky Drummer*** Clyde Stubblefield

*Not 16th notes for the whole song but it switches between 16th notes and

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*Not 16 notes for the whole song but it switches between 16th notes and 8th notes and even some quarter note grooves too.

***I had a number of thoughts about putting this song in this list. It is the

most sampled and most funky drum beat ever. Clyde plays the 16th note hi

hat pattern with one hand for over 8 minutes. That truly takes some

serious stamina and technique. The snare and bass drum are syncopated all over the place with lots of ghost notes (see later sections on what

syncopation is and ghost notes are notes played very quietly that add to the

groove) however as a song to play along to now, just play the standard 16th

note disco groove over the top and enjoy the ride with Clyde. And know, that if one day you can play the Funky Drummer groove with one lead hand on the hi hat and with all the funk of Clyde you will be a very good drummer

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4.6 Blues or 6/8 Beats

The next 3 beats are all very closely related as Blues, Shuffle and Jazz

beats developed from the American South in the early 20th Century. These

three musical genres have their history based on the fusion of African music and classical European music of the time.

What came truly first 6/8 blues beats, shuffles, jazz I don’t know. They are very closely related because they are based on accents and note

groupings of 3. In drumming, groups of 3 notes played in the space of 2 are known as triplets.

These beats are not so common as 8th note rock and pop beats (unless you

just listen to Jazz FM ☺), but are actually in the history of modern

drumming rhythms that existed well before 8th note rock and pop grooves

and beats. 8th Note rock and pop beats developed in the late 50’s and 60’s.

The shuffle developed with and comes from the music of Jazz, where Swing is the thing and Blues.

Also, as jazz, shuffle and blues beats are the mother and father beats of soul and funk and these 2 beats are the mother and father beats of hi-hop beats, then by playing and learning these beat styles you will be laying the foundations within yourself to play many of the more complicated and contemporary beats of today too. Now is that cool or what!!!

Especially when you realise that a lot of “Hi-Hop” uses sampled and copied grooves from the soul and funk bands of the 60’s and 70’s and these

drummers learnt to play Blues, Shuffle and Jazz styles first and well

before 8th note rock and pop developed.

Musically, blues music is based on groups of 12 bars (you may have heard of 12 bar blues. This is a standard form of chords changes (like C, F, and G) that are played over 12 bars.

You will have heard it a hundred times in many different ways, but just in case you haven’t. Here is a 12 bar blues chord progression

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401 - 12 bar blues chord progression

And here is a the standard Blues drum beat. The key thing here as you can see below is we play 6 notes on the hi-hat (and not 8 as before) and the

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If you play this beat whilst listening to the 12 bar blues chord progression and you’ll get that blues feel whilst playing it.

Here is a standard blues beat

1 2 3 4 5 6

Right Hand on the hi hat X X X X X X

Left Hand on snare X

Right Foot on the bass drum X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal in closed position on first beat

— — — — — —

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Moody Blues Knights In White

Satin

REM Everybody Hurts Bill Berry

INXS Never tear us apart John Farriss

Areosmith Crying Joey Kramer

Fats Domino BlueBerry Hill

Pink Album song

Aretha Franklin Natural Woman Bernard Purdie

James Brown It’s a Man’s World

Radio Head Subterranean

Homesick Alien

Phil Selway

Percy Sledge When a Man Loves a

Woman

The Animals House of the Rising

Sun

John Steel

John Lennon War is over

Live Most song from

throwing copper album e.g. I alone

The Beatles Norwegian Wood Ringo Starr

The Jools Holland Big Band

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Artis Title Drummer

Tom Jones Delilah

Muse Feeling Good Dominic Howard

Breaking the Girl Chad Smith

Goo Goo Dolls Iris

The Pogues with Kirsty McColl

Fairy Tale of New York

Andrew Ranken

Some quick comments on some of these songs:

Natural Woman by Aretha Franklin – Probably one of the greatest Aretha Franklin songs and a nice easy paced beat to play along with to learn the 6/8 blues beat.

Never tear us apart by INXS – A great and classic love song from the wonderful INXS who have given us such great dance rock music over the years, but this song sees them go all lovely and ballardy If you watched the INXS Rockstar programme I wanted Sweet Suzie McNeil to win, I wonder why ☺…..

Crying by Aerosmith – A great and classic blues rock ballard from the wonderful Aerosmith, nice easy paced 6/8 beat and some great straight forward fills. Great drumming from Joey Kramer who drums for the song so well

Breaking the Girl by Red Hot Chilli Peppers – This is a monster of a song you will need to learn this very slow and build up speed over time. You can play the basic 6/8 pattern to start with but the full version has

syncopation and some lighting fast triplet fills in the main beat. Probably, one to learn after you have been playing a while.

Fairy Tale of New York by The Pogues with Kirsty McColl – This is a medium paced 6/8 based song and is probably the greatest Christmas song ever.

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It has the most classic line of all time when Shane MacGowan sings “ I could have been someone” and Kirsty replies “ Well so could anyone” Priceless, you might need to have lived a little to understand that one. It is now a very bitter sweet song for many people due to the tragic death of Kirsty McColl in 2000, when she was hit by a speed boat whilst swimming on holiday in Mexico. A tragic loss to the world of music, RIP Kirsty.

4.6.1Triplets

At this point I need to introduce you to triplets. Triplets are a wonderful sticking combination, and they are a foundation of Jazz, Shuffle and Blues beats.

Triplets can be used as fills and grooves or a combination of both in all of these beat styles.

For example the Breaking the Girl groove is an example of using triplets within a 6/8 songs to spice it up.

We count a triplet in many ways but here is a couple of ways

403 - Triplet Count – Traditional

404 - Triplet Count - Word

And here is the sticking R L R L R L

A couple of points here and without insulting your intelligence you can see that this sticking involves playing 3 strokes in the space of 1 beat, which becomes 6 strokes in the space of two beats or 12 strokes in 4 beats if we double it up to a full bar.

The next point is that your hands alternate on the beats and the sticking repeats every 2 beats.

If you start with your right hand on beat 1, then on beat 2 you start with your left hand as follows:

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Traditional Count 1 + & 2 + &

Word Count One trip Let Two trip Let

Right Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X

Word Count Three trip Let Four trip Let

Right Hand

X X X

Left Hand X X X

As I have explained, triplets are groups of 3 notes that are played in the space of two notes.

In the example above we are playing 3 triplet 8th notes in the space of two

normal 8th notes.

Have a listen ☺

405 - Triplet roll on the snare drum

Once you have the hands going it is time to add your feet on the beats of 1, 2, 3, and 4 to give you a ¼ note pulse underneath the triplet flow of your hands.

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Word Count One trip Let two trip Let

Right Hand X X X Left Hand X X X Right Foot X Left Foot X

406 - Triplet roll on the snare drum with feet

And here is the tab for this:

Word Count One trip Let Two trip let

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Word Count Three trip let Four trip let

And just so you can here how triplets can be used here is the “Breaking the Girl” groove from Chad Smith and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers

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4.7 Shuffle Beats

The Shuffle beat is based on triplets, triplets are groups of 3 notes that are played in the space of two notes, this probably will not mean much at this time, you need to listen to shuffle beats first before I talk you though how to play a shuffle so go listen to some shuffle based songs, go and log on to ITunes and listen to the samples of the songs I have mentioned below or buy them if you are feeling flush ☺

First, a little word of warning, to learn a shuffle if you are new to drumming takes a little bit of time. It was the hardest co-ordination of hands and feet that I faced as a drummer.

Shuffle are based on triplets; triplets are groups of 3 notes that are played in the space of 2 beats and 3 neatly divides into 6 and 12, which neatly fits into 12 Bar Blues song forms.

Shuffles are very much on the feel side of drumming and because of that it really helps to listen to shuffle based songs first and to tap along for a while to really get that feel of the “swing” in the shuffle groove, so please listen to some shuffle songs first. It will make the following much much easier.

That said feel free to skip this chapter for the time being and come back to it another time if it is a bit too much now.

But if you want to learn to Shuffle then please read on ☺ Right,

Now that you have got some shuffle swing groove in your head you need to listen to the shuffle drum beat counted.

501 - Shuffle Beat Count

And here is a shuffle beat

502 – 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat

To play the hi hat shuffle pattern, a lot of instruction books say play a triplet and remove the middle note.

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Now, take this real slow to start with

1) Count out aloud “e 1 pause e 2 pause e 3 pause e 4 pause”;

2) Now tap your hand on the e 1 e 2 e 3 e 4 but not on the pause,

but still count out loud to yourself “pause”. (This gets you use to the sensation of pausing between the strokes which is the hard thing to do at first);

3) Once you can get that going stop counting the pause but leave

a gap, you should now be doing a quick double tap with a pause in between the double taps; and

4) Now start to go faster by making the pause smaller and the

double tap quicker and then you will be doing a shuffle.

Now here is a good point to say that when you master the shuffle it means you can play a jazz beat too.

So how about that being two for the price of one!!

This is because a jazz beat is in fact half of a shuffle beat. Here it is played nice and slow at 60 bpm

503 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat Hi-hat Pattern

And here it is at 120 BPM

503a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat Hi-hat Pattern

Don’t feel you have to get this fast too quick. I have just put it here to show you where you can get to as you get more comfortable.

Now once you are comfortable with the right hand part on the hi-hat (this is the actually shuffle) we need to co-ordinate our right hand playing the shuffle hi-hat pattern with our right foot playing the bass drum on beats 1 and 3

504 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and bass only

Can you hear how the second hit of the hi-hat is co-ordinated with the bass drum on beats one and three?

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504a - 120 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and bass only

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e Right Hand on the hi hat X X X X X X X X Right Foot on the bass drum X X

As always do this nice and slow

Now, we need to get you playing the shuffle hi hat pattern with your left hand playing the snare on beats 2 and 4.

Here is how it sounds

505 - 60 BPM Basic Shuffle Beat hi-hat and snare only

And here is the tab

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e Right Hand on the hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X

And here it is up to speed

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And here is the basic shuffle beat with all the parts together

Please be aware that as I am showing you how to play this using drum tables I can’t truly show you the true timing of the strokes. You need to listen and feel a shuffle beat and copy that. Use the tab below as a guide and remember to start slow and count.

1 e 2 e 3 e 4 e Right Hand on the hi hat X X X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X Right Foot on the bass drum X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal — — — — — — — —

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The following songs are good songs to listen to get a feel for shuffle beats.

Blues Brothers Band

Sweet Home Chicago

Willie Hall

Booker T and the MG’s

Green Onions Al Jackson Jnr

Bad Company Can’t Get Enough of

Your Love

Simon Kirke

The Jools Holland Big Band (with Mick Hucknal on vocals)

T-Bone Shuffle

Higher Ground Chad Smith

James Brown Think Melivin Parker

Here is a bit of background on these songs

Sweet Home Chicago – Blues Brothers Band with Willie Hall on drums – If you want to learn to shuffle this is a great song to learn how to feel the shuffle. It is long and with a constant shuffle groove throughout without to much else to confuse you. Also, if you have never seen the film “The Blues Brothers” from which this song is in, then you really must see as it is a classic with some great soul and Blues music from James Brown, Ray Charles and Arthea Franklin all well supported by the Blues Brothers Band including Steve Cropper on guitar and Willie Hall on drums.

Green Onions – Booker T and the MG’s with the late great Al Jackson Jnr on drums – Again this is a great song to play along with to learn to play a shuffle and this song is a total Rhythm and Blues anthem.

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start with. This groove would also fall into the funk section, if I had a funk section in this e-book ☺.

Playing this groove with the ghost notes is actually pretty hard and takes a fair bit of practise to get going (in my experience), however once you get it going the ghost notes it really makes it groove.

Think – James Brown with Melvin Parker – This not a full shuffle it is what is called a Quasi Shuffle sort of half way between a shuffle and a

straight 8th note beat. It is thus a real feel thing and the only way to get

there is to listen to the track and play along. I find I can play along with a reasonable feel but when trying to play myself alone it is much harder!!! To see this being played think about buying Zorro’s DVD – “The

Commandments of R&B Drumming: A Comprehensive Guide to Soul, Funk and Hip Hop" – I recommend that you buy either Zorro’s book or DVD and preferably both as you begin to progress. I refer to the book and DVD all the time to help myself improve. Both are great reference material and learning material.

You see so much of today’s music has been influenced by 60,70 and 80’s Gospel, Soul and Funk that this book/DVD can’t but help you improve by giving you an understanding of what came before.

Also, Zorro spent 6 to 7 years writing the book so just think how much information he didn’t put into it so as just to leave us with the important stuff. Thanks Zorro!!!

Zorro has also put in some great list of songs to listen too and ways to practise, but I won’t spoil the surprises for you.

Click Here if you want to purchase this book from Musicroom.com.

A little help from my Friend – The Beatles

A Beatle classic with Ringo on top form swinging and shuffling away to laid down the foundation for this great 60’s pop song.

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4.8 Jazz Beats

The swing pulse is the father, mother, and granddaddy of the 7 beats here in this book. The history of the modern drum beats comes from the swing beat of the early 1920’s. A swing beat has a lovely wonderful gentle feel that makes you want to move and dance in time to the beat/rhythmic pulse of the music.

The jazz beat derives from the 3 over 2 polyrhythm which is moving into intermediate drumming and I cover this in my 600 page complete The Beginners Guide to Drumming e-book, which you can get on my website. However, at this time you can think of a jazz beat as in a way half of a shuffle beat.

The major difference that Jazz Beats have in contrast to the other beats in this book is the leading right hand pattern is played on the ride cymbal. The ride cymbal gives the groove a different sound than if it were played on the hi hat. This gives us the distant jazz sound of the longer ringing wash sound from the ride.

Also, the snare and bass drum are played more lighter and more softly in

contrast to the stronger accents that 8th note rock and pop and shuffle

grooves on the main beats of 1 2 3 and 4.

Listen to this standard jazz beat and see what I mean:

601 – 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat

Note for learning purposes in the next sound file, I have mixed the bass and snare loud and heavy so you can hear how they co-ordinate with the ride cymbal. When playing in a real jazz situation, as I say above the bass and snare are played much softer.

Listen to this and see what I mean:

601a – 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat –Heavy Snare and bass

And here is how you count it

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1 2 e 3 4 e Right Hand on the ride cymbal X X X X X X Left Hand on snare X X Right Foot on the bass drum X X Left foot on the hi hat pedal in closed position on first beat O X — O X —

The basis jazz beat in addition to a common bass drum on beats 1 and 3 uses the hi-hat with the left foot to play/accent the 2 and 4 beat. The use of the your two feet together in playing this beat really helps give an

underlying foundation/groove to it.

However, lets get you playing the jazz cymbal pattern Here it is played nice and slow at 60 bpm

603 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat Ride Cymbal Pattern

The ride cymbal pattern is the same as the shuffle hi hat cymbal pattern but this time we play it on the ride cymbal rather than the hi-hat This gives us the jazz sound of the long ring wash sound from the ride.

Now once you are comfortable with that we need to co-ordinate our right hand playing the ride pattern with our right foot playing the bass drum on beats 1 and 3

604 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat ride and bass only

Can you hear how the second hit of the ride cymbal is co-ordinated with the bass drum ?

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604a - 120 BPM Basic Jazz Beat ride and bass only

When you are comfortable with your right hand and your right foot working together we can introduce the left hand on the snare

605 - 60 BPM Basic Jazz Beat

4.8.1Jazz Feet Co-ordination

Now when you are happy playing the main jazz beat without the left foot, we can move on to bringing your left foot into the groove.

Now I am going to show you a good method of bringing your left foot in to play the hi hat and making it strongly connected with you bass drum foot. It is called the “Heal Toe” method as you will see why in a minute, but don’t worry it is pretty easy to master, because if I can, then anybody can!!. Now here is our standard jazz beat but with just the right and left feet playing on the quarter notes

606 - Basic Jazz Beat with just feet playing

1 2 e 3 4 e Right foot X X Left Foot X X

In this sound file I have brought the sound of the bass and hi hat louder so you can easily hear it

Now to help to get this going, we’ll use the “heal/toe” method.

The heal/toe method has you rolling your heal and toe between the heal of one foot and the ball of your other foot at the same time like this

1) On beat 1 – Put the ball of your right foot down and at the same time

rock back onto the heel of your left foot.

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4) On beat 4 – Guess what you do ????? Repeat same as beat 2!!!! Hey isn’t this drum thing simple or what!!!

What you are doing is having you feet play the quarter note pulse of the music which gives the groove that solid feel, but for the time being, this will help you get your hands and feet in synch with each other and in time. Now go back to the hands and whilst playing the Jazz beat with your hands add the heal/toe feet movements of your feet.

Take this slowly and easy to start with as always.

Get you hands and feet moving right and correct first and only then start to play faster.

You can, of course, use this technique with all other types of beats too. As with the Shuffle beat once you have the core movements correct you need to listen and play along with Jazz songs as Jazz is a huge feel style of music. So play along to your hearts content to get the sense and feel of Jazz.

Jazz drumming is a world within the drumming world and many drummers spend a lifetime within it.

The following songs are good songs to listen to get a feel for Jazz and some shuffle beats.

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Artist Title Drummer Cllfford Brown and

Max Roach

Cllfford Brown and Max Roach

Max Roach

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

Moanin Art Blakey

Roy Haynes We Three Roy Haynes

Miles Davis Milestones Philly Joe Jones

Art Pepper Art Pepper + Eleven Mel Lewis

Thelonious Monk Monk’s Dream Frankie Dunlop

Dave Brubeck Live at Carnegie Hall

(includes the

wonderful “Take 5” song)

Joe Morello

Buddy Rich The Monster Buddy Rich

Robbie Williams Swing when you are

winning

Ralph Simms

Well, that is the 7 beats done. I hope that you have got the hang of them OK.

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5.1 Adding spice to your grooves with more bass drums

If you listen to the songs I have listed above and in particular in the 8th

note rock and pop grooves, you will quickly hear that there are more snare

hits and bass drum hits in the these songs than the basic 8th note rock and

pop grooves I showed you earlier.

They have the common 8th note rock and pop beat at their core, but the

drummer or drum programmer has added extra snare and bass drum

strokes to the groove. This is called many things but in musical terms it is called “Syncopation”.

A syncopated rhythm is a rhythm where a beat falls with equal emphasises

in between the main beats. In our case, of the 8th note rock and pop beat,

the main beats of 1,2,3 and 4 are the main beats. These are the beats that are the pulse of the music.

These beats are called the “on” beats and the beats in between marked up by the “+” sign are called the “off” beats.

All styles of music use syncopation in some way or another to make the groove more interesting and to fit with other parts of the song played by the guitar, bass, keyboards and of course the vocalist. I hear syncopation in pretty much all music styles: Rock, Jazz, Soul, RnB, Pop, , But two of the biggest genres that use syncopation are Funk and Hip Hop.

Funk and Hip Hop are probably the two biggest users of syncopation. To get a feel for this style you need to go and listen to James Brown’s music and the drummers of James Brown including Clayton Filliyau, Nat Kendrick, John “Jabo” Stacks, and Clyde Stubblefield. These guys laid down some of the most famous funk tracks ever recorded Cold Sweat, Pappa got a brand new pig bag and the all time classic’s Get Up I Feel Like a Sex Machine and Funky Drummer.

Hip Hop is musical decendant of Funk and Soul and so many of today's great hip hop grooves have come from the "Funk" drummers of the 60's and 70's. To hear some great hip hop grooves with syncopation listen to albums such as Justin Timberlake's Future Sex/Love Sounds, The Roots,