Lesson 2 - The quarter note beat

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Written by Henrik

Time to play your first drum beat.

Play quarter notes with right hand on hihat. Remember quarter notes equals the four beat of the bar 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Add left hand on beats 2 and 4.

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Try playing a bit faster and slightly open the hihat.

Sounds like this:

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Crash

One extremely common way to highlight musical structures is by hitting the crash cymbal.
Move your right hand from the hihat to the crash on the first beat of every second measure.

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Fill in

To emphasise this ever more you can lead in to the crash by making a fill or fill-in.

Play one bar of 8:th notes and orchestrate in this manner (one instrument per beat):

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Always end the fill with a crash!

Sounds like this:

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Learn to feel 4 bars

Play a four bar cycle and put this fill in the last bar. When you repeat these you will automatically get a crash (in bar 1) as an ending of the fill in bar 4. 

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Always try to practice in chunks of 4 bars (or 8,12,16, 32 bars). Almost all popular music from jazz to metal is constructed from 4-bar "modules". Therefore it is extremely important to get the "feel" of 4-bar periods. 

 

Good luck!