Every form of music from Mozart to Metallica contains an underlying pulse or rhythm that drives its essence. Learn to recognize and play this pulse on any drum set!
The basic stroke is the method by which a drummer strikes their drum most frequently, regardless of volume, and serves as the cornerstone of all other drum styles.
Part I: Getting Started
For beginners just starting out, Chapter 2 may be an appropriate place to start. It offers an overview of drumming’s basic principles that serves as the cornerstone for building drumming skills over time.
When playing any drum, knowing the basic stroke is essential to successful performance. This fundamental technique produces muted tones with minimum pressure needs – an essential foundational piece to master before moving onto other more advanced strokes and styles.
For an effective bass sound, hit the drum’s head very near its rim (actually where the head meets the shell). This produces a higher-pitched tone and opens up an array of sounds for you to play with. However, mastery requires practicing this stroke as you must control how much pressure you apply on the stick and prevent too hard or soft of an impact from being made.
The Ruff
The ruff is similar to an accent but played using both hands instead of just one. As well as being fun to play, this technique also serves to add variety and change to any rhythm track you play – key components include remembering both hands are being used together as opposed to just using right hand or tensing up shoulders!
As any musician knows, repetitive stress injuries are a risk. To help avoid them, consciously relax your shoulders at various points throughout the day – start by taking a deep breath in and slowly exhaling. Do this two or three times and you should feel your shoulders drop slightly – this simple act could save from later pain!
Part II: Digging into the Drumset
Drums are at the core of all popular music. While you may enjoy sitting in the tenth row at concerts to watch guitarists or singers perform, sometimes it can be rewarding to move behind the kit and put your hands (and feet!) on drums themselves – this chapter can help.
In this chapter, you learn the fundamentals of drum music notation and discover ways to hone both your rhythmic and musical skills. Starting by learning the open-toed beat, then progressing on to other basic rhythms to develop your rhythmic vocabulary further. Furthermore, you become acquainted with some of the types of drums and cymbals found on a drumset.
Learn the proper use of drumsticks so that they produce optimal sounds, and make the most of your practice time by minimizing unnecessary repetition and working on parts of the drum that require greater dexterity.
Additionally, I demonstrate how to read a drum set chart and use it to find your favorite drumming parts. Finally, you discover some conventions used by drummers to make life easier – for instance when seeing dotted lines on single-line drum notation charts this signifies hitting drums with edge of stick rather than center hit; or that higher pitched drums sit above lower pitched ones in standard sets.
The chapter also details some of the varied ways you can hit a drum head with your stick, including accent notes which add tone without adding volume and dead-sticking, whereby holding close to the drum head achieves muted sounds.
Part III: Dressing up Your Drumset Skills
When musicians in a band are playing their instruments, they rely on the drummer to keep time. That means the drummer must consistently and evenly create beautiful music; to do this, he or she must learn how to count music; most popular music utilizes four quarter notes per bar (or measure), so when played flawlessly by the drummer other musicians can count them and follow along in time with the song.
Drummers must also know how to grip their sticks properly in order to strike an accurate beat on a drum. There are various ways of holding the stick, but what matters most is having control of it. One effective method involves placing thumb and first finger atop of it while placing second and ring fingers next to each other next to first; using your ring finger as guidance while providing stability is another effective technique for new drummers. Never hold the stick so that its tip touches index finger knuckles; doing this limits their playing abilities significantly
Once a drummer masters how to hold their stick correctly, it is time to learn all the strokes involved with drumming. The most fundamental is an open stroke: when the stick strikes a head unaccented. Other strokes include muted tone which produces quieter sounds; muted tone or muted tone are used more for subdued tones while rimstroke adds volume and momentum into their beats.
Staccato strokes require quick, precise strokes for a quicker beat; often found in jazz or rock music.
No matter your level of experience as a musician or beginner, this book will help you develop the essential drumming skills to perform in any band or ensemble. Unlike other drumming books, this one does not cover musical notation basics or traditional forms like keys and melodies in traditional drum and percussion music; rather it presents drum rhythms useful to drummers before showing how they should be read within drumming context.
Part IV: Pounding Out the Beat: Traditional Drums and Percussion
A drummer must master their pulse – the rhythm that gives music its foundation – in order to become effective at drumming. All music contains an underlying pulse or beat that forms its composition; whether Mozart or Metallica, all musical compositions share this fundamental beat or pulse which unifies their compositions. Most styles feature this beat as its heartbeat but less prominently elsewhere.
Drummers who develop an inner pulse find it much simpler to play any type of drum. Achieve this starts by thinking it through and practicing it before even taking up their instruments – doing this can dramatically decrease how long you need to sit at them, as well as ensure there are no errors when actually playing it live.
Your mental skills can be developed by visualizing patterns on drums before visualizing yourself playing them – this technique known as mental practice is used by world-class athletes, musicians and scientists. Your mind does not differentiate between real physical motion and imagined movement – if you learn to effectively visualize your goals before actually undertaking them, your body will react in exactly the same way when doing them for real!
Metronome practice can also help develop strong pulse. By tapping to its rhythm and counting out loud, metronomes allow drummers to establish an internal pulse that will carry them through any musical situation.
Chapters 15 through 17 provide you with the tools to take your drumming to a higher level, by introducing you to traditional drums and percussion instruments from all over the world. Learn to play these drums by striking them with palm or stick; combine their sounds with other percussion instruments for polyrhythms!
This book’s final chapter also offers techniques for layering multiple sounds to add depth and character to a drum arrangement. This can be especially beneficial when writing soundtracks for film and television – for instance, sound designers for Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Batman Begins used layered drum and percussion sounds to achieve an unforgettable cinematic low end for its main title theme.