Drum Set Lessons

Contents

Welcome to my drum set lessons website. Click here for tips on How to Play the Drums. For those of you just starting, I’ve made a special section of Beginner Drum Lessons. For a technical approach, I also have some exercises on the Drum Rudiments.

Linear Drumming

This particular lesson will focus on how to write and play linear beats on the drum set. Be sure to see my previous lesson on Linear Drumming for a more in depth explanation of these beats.

First I’ll cover how to change standard Drum Beats into linear ones.

The picture above is a standard beat. Changing it into a linear rhythm is fairly simple. All you have to do is remove any overlapping notes. Above you’ll see overlapping bass and hi hat notes on the count of 1, 3, 3+, and 3A. The snare and hats overlap on 2 and 4. Find those numbers confusing? See my lesson on How To Read Drum Music.

The picture above has removed all of the overlapping notes. Which ones you remove is really up to you and there are many possible combinations in the example above. Now you know how to make linear beats. These are a cool way to add variations to your drum set skills. You can throw a linear beat onto the end of a four measure phrase for a unique transition or slip into the middle of a phrase for variation.

Linear Exercises

Now it’s time for some Drum Practice. The exercises below are all fairly simple to follow. They are 16th note linear beats. So while you may find the Drum Sheet Music hard to read, it’s really not. Just count 1e+a2e+a3e+a4e+a and know that each count will receive a beat. Have fun.