Kick Bass Drum

Learning to Play Drums - The Basics for Beginners

The drums are an exciting instrument to learn. The groove and over all feel of a song is often kept together by the drum beats being played. When you first piece together a full beat with the bass drum, snare and high hat you'll be excited.

I want to introduce you to the basics of learning to play the drums in this article. I'm not going to teach you any beats, but rather give you some basic guidelines to use if you've just purchased a drum kit or are sitting down at a kit for the first time.

1 – Start with the High Hat

There's a lot going on when you're playing the drums. Your left and right hands are keeping different beats and so are your feet. Before you introduce the kick drum to anything start out first with the high hat. You can also start with the snare but more often then not the high hat is played on every beat with most songs.

Use your right hand and practice keeping an even beat on the high hat. If you're familiar with music time then concentrate on a 4/4 beat something like 1, 2, 3, 4. You want the time between each strike of the high hat to be the same.

2 – Add the Snare Drum

Once you've mastered keeping common time on the high hat try adding in one hit of the snare drum on the 4 beat when you're counting in your head.

So you're still playing 1, 2, 3, 4 on the high had, but now on the 4 hit the snare with your right hand stick. The first few times you try this you're probably going to mess up the beat your keeping on the high hat, that's alright it's kind of like crossing wires in your brain when you tell your hands to do this. With some practice it'll work.

3 – Time for Bass Drum

If you've got that beat working with the snare and high hat it's time to add in the bass drum. On the 1 beat add the kick peddle and one strike to the bass drum. Continue to keep your 4/4 time on the high hat and and snare drum beat on the 4.

This will take a bit of practice but you're now telling your brain to do three different things and it takes some time to get it right.

This is a basic beginner beat when learning to play the drums. If you're eager to learn more beats I'd suggest getting a drum lessons dvd. These self study lessons are quickly becoming the method of choice for adults to learn the drums at home.

About the Author

Read for more beats? You can learn to play drums at home with a quality drum instruction dvd. This form of self study is far less expensive then private drum lessons and you can learn entirely on your own when you feel like it.

Kick Bass Drum

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