Rock Perspectives

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.

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The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming

This month we are starting to introduce a book by Bobby Rondinelli and Michael Lauren called The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming. It takes a slightly different approach from our ongoing studies from the Joe Franco book on double bass…

By Bobby Rondinelli and Michael Lauren
Jan 1, 2023

“Hoedown”

Emerson, Lake, & Palmer Trilogy, recorded in 1972 This is one of my favorite instrumentals, probably one of the all-time great pieces of music I played with Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. Without a shadow of a doubt, it’s one of…

Reprinted from Carl Palmer’s book Applied Rhythms.
Oct 31, 2022

Carmine Appice: Realistic Sixteenth Note Triplets

Continuing Modern Drummer’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Carmine Appice’s Ultimate Realistic Rock book, this month we present a sound often associated with Carmine’s playing in Vanilla Fudge, many of John Bonham’s Led Zeppelin grooves, and later with Dennis…

Modern Drummer
Sep 30, 2022

Realistic 9/8 Time

Continuing Modern Drummer’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Carmine Appice’s Ultimate Realistic Rock book, this month we present one of the bonus sections that was included in Ultimate Realistic Rock, and not included in the original text of Realistic…

Modern Drummer
Aug 31, 2022

Realistic 7/8 time

This year Modern Drummer has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Carmine Appice’s groundbreaking book, Ultimate Realistic Rock. In the last few months, we have included Carmine’s beats based around quarter notes, eighth notes, accented bass drum notes, and sixteenth…

Modern Drummer
Jul 31, 2022
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Carmine Appice Ultimate Realistic Rock Sixteenth Note Rhythms

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Carmine Appice Ultimate Realistic Rock, Modern Drummer is reprinting this classic section of Carmine’s book. In this section Carmine introduces two essential rhythms to rock drumming, and teaches us how to play and…

Modern Drummer
Jun 30, 2022

Carmine and Taylor

Taylor Hawkins has mentioned in several interviews, that along with playing along to songs off of the radio, some of the first beats that he learned, came from his next-door neighbor showing him the first page of the Carmine Appice…

Modern Drummer
Apr 30, 2022

Chad Smith’s Red Hot Chili Peppers Audition

I grew up in Detroit and moved out to California in August of 1988. Through a friend of a friend, I got the audition with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. My friend knew a girl who was dating John Frusciante.…

By Chad Smith
Mar 31, 2022

The Empty Canvas

Accepting Creative Input For this article I’d like to talk about a luxury that we don’t always get to experience as a professional drummer, I call it “The Empty Canvas.” This simply refers to the amount of creative input that…

By Billy Ashbaugh
Feb 28, 2022

Crashes in Your Fills

The stereotypical rock drum fill might be a measure of 16th notes cascading around the kit from snare to toms, but there are many other options. As we progress as players, we want to increase our vocabulary of beats and…

By Dawn Richardson
May 17, 2021

The Path to Polyrhythmic Proficiency

Building Grooves That Train You to Hear Two Things at Once The main challenge with any polyrhythm is being able to hear and feel it as it relates to the pulse. The best way to attack this challenge is by…

Modern Drummer
Jan 1, 2021

Beat Displacements

Exercises for Internalizing 16th-Note Permutations Displacement is a beat-editing tool that can make a groove sound glitchy. This is achieved by shifting the groove in such a way that what was originally played on beat 1 is now landing somewhere…

Modern Drummer
Sep 1, 2020
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Odd Groupings on the Offbeats

Alternative Rhythmic Placements for More Adventurous Options If you’ve been working through my articles over the past few years, you’ve been exposed to a good number of odd subdivisions, particularly quintuplets. We almost exclusively start those advanced rhythms on the…

Modern Drummer
Aug 1, 2020

Rhythmic Emotion -A Masterclass in Applying Tension-and-Release to Your Drumming

A Masterclass in Applying Tension-and-Release to Your Drumming TO READ THE FULL STORY: SUBSCRIBE TO ACCESS LOG IN

Aaron Edgar
May 1, 2020
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