Drumming Tips and Reviews For Acoustic and Electronic Drums!
Almost 20 years ago I discovered Dave Weckl’s ‘Back To Basics’ and ‘The Next Step’ vhs tapes. There was a lot of great information and lessons to be learned on those tapes. One of the lessons that is very challenging is an exercise he created that includes ten hand and foot combinations. He would do …
Read More Dave Weckl Hand and Foot Exercises
Looking back on my early percussion education, it’s now apparent that lessons covering bass drum technique weren’t particularly in depth. In fact, they didn’t really go much further than the introduction. “Do that bit with your foot,” was pretty much the only instruction I received. A few years later, a friend of mine bought a …
Read More How To Develop Foot Speed!
Ghost notes are a little like the drummer’s secret recipe for a tasty groove; people don’t necessarily know they’re there, but they make all the difference. For those of you who don’t know, ghost notes are essentially lighter strikes (often on the snare, but not always) that you can slot into beats to give them …
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In case you don’t know, drum n bass is a kind of electronic music played at some pretty breakneck speeds. It probably reached the height of its popularity in the 90s, but it’s still a great work out for a drummer and it can be quite fun to try and make an acoustic kit sound …
Read More Drum N Bass Drumming Guide!
In the most straightforward terms, “breakbeat” comes from the beat the drummer played in soul and funk tracks during the break (when the rest of the band took a breather). Breakbeat as we know it today stems from hip hop production, as a lot of hip hop tracks used those drum breaks as the basis …
Read More Classic Breakbeat Drumming Tips!
If you are a drummer and/or a drum teacher, it is often useful to be able to set up basic exercises for your students or yourself. I am going to show you how to easily do this in Finale. Finale is a professional music notation software that can be used for everything from simple exercises to …
Read More Setting Up Exercises and Drum Beat Notation in Finale!
I’ve met so many musicians who are scared of 7/8 because it feels unfamiliar and wrong, so instead of pushing themselves, they just add another eighth note (or quaver for you Brits) to the bar. I once walked past a bar and heard the cover band inside playing Pink Floyd’s Money in 4/4 instead of 7/4 and …
Read More Practicing and Grooving In 7/8!
If you are a drummer and/or a drum teacher, it is often useful to be able to set up basic exercises for your students or yourself. I am going to show you how to easily do this in MuseScore 2.0. MuseScore 2.0 is a powerful open source notation software that can be used for everything …
Read More Setting up Exercises and Drum Beats in MuseScore 2.0!
It is not unusual when working on writing out a musical number for an ensemble to get through everything and then come to the drums and be totally stumped as to what to do and how to write for the instrument. You have beautiful strings, a hard-hitting horn section, but when you get to the …
Read More Drum Notation Basics!
There must be something in a drummer’s DNA that makes them such fiends for improving their hand speed. Every drummer seems to want to be the fastest, despite the fact that, in your day-to-day drumming life, you very rarely need to be the fastest. Who am I to stand in the way of your quest, …
Read More Develop Hand Speed!