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Check out my drum tuition book: Concepts

Challenge Your Coordination Skills With This Drum Game

Challenge Your Coordination Skills With This Drum Game

by | Mar 30, 2020 | Beginners, Creativity, Learning approach

Who doesn’t like drum games? They’re a great way to test and challenge yourself and your friends and family.

Today, on my Instagram Live lesson we played some fun drum games! These were actually excellent exercises develop your coordination skills, but can also translate to the drum set in fantastic ways. We could use these to come up with fun drum beat or fill ideas.

As you may recall, the game was about replacing notes played by our hands, with notes playing by our feet. Below are the simplified instructions to follow in order to play. Keep in mind that, if you don’t have a drum set, you can use your hands to tap on your lap, and feet to tap the floor.

Instructions

  1. We start by playing simple Single Strokes (i.e. alternating hands) on our snare drum or lap, playing them as 16th notes (semiquavers)
  2. Then we replace one, or more, notes with a bass drum (or right foot) one at a time, repeating the exercise a few times over without making a mistake
  3. After that, we played a easy beginner drum beats (see previous blog post) for 3 bars and one of the above exercises on bar 4 (referred to as a 4 bar phrase)

Use a metronome to challenge yourself; try to do these really slowly, say at 40BPM, to really explore the space between the every note. Then, try them faster, and try not to slip up! 

Be sure to check out my YouTube channel for more content; I tend to post drum covers as well as drum lessons from time to time.

I’ve written a quick PDF with each game / exercise for you to download and have fun with. Grab it by clicking the link below.

DOWNLOAD THIS FUN DRUM GAME HERE

If you want to learn more drum games, or are interested in learning to play drums, check out my drum lessons and drop me a line! Also, check out my drum book Concepts here and grab yourself a copy; it’s a great learning resource and helps support what I do.

Thanks, and see you online!

Nick x

5 Basic Drum Beats For Beginners

5 Basic Drum Beats For Beginners

by | Mar 28, 2020 | Beginners, Learning approach

Here’s a PDF with 5 great basic drum beats for you to have fun with. Learn them, practice them and use them to play along to your favourite tunes!

Beginner tips

If you’re a beginner, these are great drum beats to learn because they’re very common in everything from Pop to Rock! You’ll be able to use them to play along to massive songs from Wheatus’ Teenage Dirtbag and Taylor Swift’s Willow! Even if the beats on the latter songs are slightly different, they’re variations on the same theme, so they’re worth learning. Fancy learning more drum beats?

 

That said, these grooves are also a fantastic way to work on your coordination! And if you practice them, even without a practice pad, make sure you use a metronome as this is very important. These beats are a great way to work on your time if you try playing them slowly first, and then start speeding them up!

Chopzzz Pillowcase - Pillow gift for drummers

Products like the CHOPZzz Pillowcase are a great way to practice the drums and technique in a fun and different way.

 

If you’re interested in learning how to play drums, I have a few other articles which you might find helpful:

 

But again, if it’s lessons you’re after check out my drum lessons! I teach beginners to advanced students of all ages, skills and neurodiversity / S.E.N (i.e. people on the Autism spectrum, etc).

 

DOWNLOAD THE BASIC DRUM BEATS PDF HERE

 

I hope this has been useful in helping you make more sense of drum beats in your favourite songs. Have fun using these basic drum beats to play along to your favourite tunes!

 

Lastly, if you fancy, check out my drum book Concepts; a great learning resource for drummers of all levels!

 

Thanks, and see you online!

 

Nick x