Hi everyone and welcome back to another free drum lesson from Hackney Wick Drum Studio. If you’re looking for more information on 1-2-1 drum lessons in London, take a look here. If you missed the previous lesson on the eighth note, you can check that out here. In todays continuation of the Reading Rhythm series, we’ll be taking another step into reading and playing the Eighth note. As with all the lessons so far, a pair of drum sticks and a snare drum/practice pad or any other suitable surface will do.
As with the previous drum lessons, the most important thing is the 4 count. However, when dealing with the Eighth note, we need to sub-divide this count into 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Make sure the ‘and’ counts fall evenly between the numbers.
Take a look at the exercise below.
As this is a follow on from the previous lesson, we now have two groups off eighth note per bar. You'll see in the first five lines of the exercise, that the eighth notes move their positions every line. The count for the first line would be - 1,2,3 and 4 and. For the second line it will be 1,2 and 3 and 4. See if you can work out the counting for the next few lines.
Let me just take a short break in this exercise to tell you that I offer face to face drum lessons from my drum studio in Hackney, East London. If you’re interested in taking your skills further and need some guidance on anything related to drumming, you can drop me a message here, check out further information on what I do on my main webpage, or book a drum lesson directly here.
Now back to the drum lesson.
As I always recommend, start this drum lesson at a slow tempo and practice your counting before moving on to higher tempos.
For the last sixteen bars of this exercise, we have combinations of everything we've learned so far in the lesson. It's important now to keep one eye on the next bar as it will change every time. This is a great way to start understanding how to play sheet music, as you never know what lies ahead.
Make sure to leave me a comment and let me know how you got on with todays drum lesson, or if you need help with anything else drum related. As always, if you have any questions about todays drum lesson, you can get in touch here. If you would like to book a Drum Lesson with me, just hit this link.
See you again for another Reading Rhythm Drum Lesson
Happy Drumming
Jack x