Better Concerts and Music

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 is a lot happening when you’re playing a beat on 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.

Using just your right hand cross over across your chest and practice keeping an even beat and tempo on the high hat cymbal. If you have some knowledge of 4/4 time then practice keeping the beat like this: 1,2,3,4. You want the time between each strike of the high hat to be the same.

2 – Add in some Snare

Now that you’re maintaining the common time 4/4 beat on the cymbal high hat let’s add something else, let’s hit the snare on the 4 beat.

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’re feeling good about the snare and the high hat let’s add in the kick drum. On the 1 beat add the kick peddle and one strike to the bass drum. Continue with your two current pieces of 4 beats on the high hat cymbal and the one hit of the snare drum on the 4 beat.

Now you’re telling your brain to do three different things with each hand and one foot, this is going to take some practice and patience.

That’s an easy beginner beat with first learning the drums. If you’re eager to learn more beats I’d suggest getting a drum lesson dvd. These types of home study courses are quickly becoming the main choice for adults who want to learn to play drums.

One of the better products we’ve come across to help teach yourself the drums is Learn & Master Drums. This course is several DVDs of instruction and audio that you can use entirely at your own pace to learn the drums at home.

The drum belongs to the percussion family, and is probably the most famous of its kind. It has been used to provide sounds for the rituals that ancient people do to appease their gods. Presently, the drum remains one of the most popular musical instruments, and no band is complete without it. Learning how to play the drum can be really rewarding, as it can be a way to showcase your talent and skill to others. It doesn’t hurt that you can brag about your drumming abilities too.

Some experts will tell you that the first thing to do when learning to play the drums is to determine what genre of music you want to play. You will find that most people think of drums as just hitting them at the right moments. Actually, drums have notes too and the beat depends on the kind of music you are playing. So choose your genre then proceed with your adult drum lessons.

To play the drums, it’s actually advised that you take proper adult drum lessons by a qualified teacher. This will ensure that you learn the instrument the right way. But to give you some ideas, here are a few basic principles about playing the drums.

Firstly, you must learn to hold the sticks properly. You should grip them about an inch from the bottom easily but firmly. Your thumbs meanwhile should be pointed to towards the tip. Another way to hold the sticks is by gripping it much like a pen. It’s that easy.

Drums are relatively expensive so it is understandable that you may not be able to buy yourself a set immediately. Not to worry though, because you could still practice. What you should do is use your hands. You could drum using almost anything, actually. Find a song and drum a beat of eighth notes to it.

If you got the rhythm, then you can start stepping on the bass drum pedal with your right foot and on the high hat pedal with your left foot. As you start playing, take note that you are hitting the hight hat. That is, if you already have a drum.

If you are already familiar with the normal beats, it would be a simple matter to add a snare drum to have a complete set. You must also remember to use the left stick when beating to the even numbers, like 2, 4, etc.. Practicing this technique will have placed you halfway to learning the drums.

Learning how to play the drums may be hard at first but as you go on with the process, you will be surprised to see that it is quite easy. The key in playing the drums is having proper coordination, since you’re using many parts of your body.

Drum sets are expensive, and honestly, you would want to be sure first that you want to go through with the adult drum lessons. If not, you’ll just be wasting time and money on it. What you can do is ask your friends and loved ones. Doing research will also give many insights. Then and only then, should you go ahead with pursuing your dream.

If you are like many people today, you really don’t have the time to learn how to play drums in a class. Or say you don’t have the funds to have a tutor teach you. Regardless, something is always block your way from getting to learn how to play the drums, and that can become misleading. You might even have looked into learn how to play Drums programs at home. Whether it be books or cd’s, you will come to see that these also create tension and irritation. No need to worry though, there are good programs out there somewhere.

To begin with, these programs wont put a dent in your wallet. They’re not your typical book and music cd combo program either, they are similar to having your very own tutor right in your home. You get to learn at your own pace, so no schedules or anything. When you get extra time to enjoy yourself, you can just turn on the lesson DVD’s and jam on your drums. It’s as simple as that. One more thing about these at home programs is that the material is there for you to look at as many time as you see necessary. So if you come across something that you are having trouble with, you can simply look it up again.

Learn and Master Drums by Dann Sherrill is one of the programs we spoke about above. The box comes with a very comprehensive lesson manual with high quality pictures, 20 lesson DVDs, and play along cds. This program will make learning to play the Drums a breeze for anyone interested in playing. It has been hailed as one of the premier learn to play Drums programs on the internet today. The material quality is quite impressive. But don’t let me sell you on it, why not check out the Learn and Master Drums review. So just relax and have fun learning how to play the drums!