Basics
Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
BASICS - Five-Stroke Glue
The world’s greatest drummers have often laid the foundation of their grooves and fills with the five-stroke roll. It can act as a connective tissue that binds musical ideas together. Think about Steve Gadd’s hypnotic marching rhythms, Carter Beauford’s slick…
BASICS - Six-Stroke Success
The six-stroke roll is easily one of my favorite rudiments. I was hooked on it after hearing the first few bars of the Temptations’ “My Girl.” This popular lick has crept its way into all types of music—from big band…
Falling Rocks - A Primer on One of Drumming's Most Powerful Fills
The term “falling rocks” refers to a very powerful fill concept made famous by legendary rockers like Carmine and Vinny Appice, John Bonham, Cozy Powell, and Tommy Aldridge, and it’s often used by contemporary metal, prog, and fusion drummers. TO…
BASICS - Advanced Disco
BASICS Advanced Disco Beyond Four on the Floor by Rich Redmond Disco, a style of music popularized in the 1970s, launched dance crazes, drove up record sales, and sometimes caused a lot of frustration among the era’s working drummers. (Some…
BASICS - Fundamental Fills
The abundant amount of educational material on the market can overwhelm many students and aspiring professional drummers. Due to limited practice schedules or performance opportunities, some drummers fail to see how to implement new or practical material into their daily…
Practi-Patterns - A Dozen of the Most Common Kick/Snare Figures
One of the best things you can do in your drumming study is work on practical techniques, stickings, grooves, and fills that can be applied in real-life situations on the bandstand and in the studio. After playing a wide variety…
Stickings That Rock - Part2: Exploring an Additional Hand Pattern
In this lesson we’ll focus on another sticking that I acquired while working through George Lawrence Stone’s classic book Stick Control. The rhythm in the right hand is rooted in the first part of a 3:2 clave rhythm. (Think of…
Threes and Fives - Fills With Odd Groupings
I’ve always found it fun and interesting to explore the possibilities available when using common subdivisions such as 8ths, 16ths, or 8th-note triplets. For example, we can play a double-stroke roll or paradiddle sticking within 8th-note triplets to create a…
The Swampy Double Groove - Grease Up Your Phrases
With double grooves, the left hand plays every 8th note using unaccented strokes in between accented backbeats. I refer to these unaccented notes as “taps.” Combining this snare pattern with a standard 8th-note hi-hat figure results in a locomotive groove…
Stickings That Rock, Part 1: From A Hand Pattern to a Groove
This month we’ll look at a sticking that can be found in the first few pages of George Lawrence Stones’ book Stick Control and apply it to patterns on the drumset. The sticking, RLRR LRRL, is a staple of my…
Flam It Up: Add Some Meat to Your Fills
Flams are fun! A flam is defined as a soft stroke, or grace note, and a louder main stroke played closely together to sound like one. Flams can be closed (less space between strokes) or open (more space between strokes).…
