The 4 Basic Rock Drum Set Coordinations

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When learning to play rock drums, there are only a few ways that you need to be able to coordinate your limbs before you can play most rock songs. If we look at drumming from the simplest point of view, we can see that there are ultimately only two things we can do with a stick. We can let it bounce out of the drum head, or we can let it bounce in. When we let it bounce out, we get only one stroke. When we let it bounce back in, we can achieve multiple strokes for only one wrist/arm motion. The most common uses of bouncing in would be the double stroke roll (RRLL) and the buzz roll, in which the stick is allowed to bounce as many times as possible, creating a consistently sustained sound from the drum. These basic strokes could be called the rudiments to the rudiments, if you will. They are the extra tiny pieces that combine to make up EVERY single rudiment that you play.

So when we play the drum set, especially when playing rock drum patterns, we're going to be playing the snare on beats two and four most of the time, while keeping straight eighth notes on the hi hat, or any other cymbal for that matter. If you read drum tabs, this pattern will look like this:
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
----o-------o---

We can then add bass drum patterns that use either singles or doubles. There are four combinations that we create here. The bass drum can be played together with the hi hat, in between hi hat notes, it can play a double that starts with a hi hat note, and it can play a double that starts in between hi hat notes.

This first one is the MOST BASIC rock drum beat ever. It is what every other groove that you'll ever play is based on. The tabs for playing a bass drum note together with the hi hat look like this (We'll play the bass drum on one and three):
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
----o-------o---
o-------o-------

One of the most common bass drum patterns that uses the bass drum in between hi hat notes looks like this:
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
----o-------o---
o--o----o--o----
Listen carefully to make sure that the second bass drum note is played all by itself. DO NOT play the hi hat with it. We have to cut the invisible string tying your right hand to your right foot. If you have trouble with this at first, try breaking it down like this:

Just play the first 3 notes:
x-x-
o--o

Another good exercise for this one is to just play back and forth between the hi hat and bass drum repeatedly:
x-x-x-x-
-o-o-o-o

Then you can go back and try the whole beat again.

The next beat will have a double on the bass drum that starts with a hi hat note. Make sure that you don't play a hi hat note with the second bass drum note. Again, we need to untie your right hand from your right foot. Here's the groove:
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
----o-------o---
oo------oo------

If you have trouble with this try breaking it down and just playing the hard part SLOWLY:
x-x-
oo--

Then try the whole beat again.

The last basic coordination for this lesson is playing a double that starts in between hi hat notes. Try this one:
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
----o-------o---
o------oo------o

Note that on this groove, while it doesn't appear visually as a double, the last note and the first note will sound right next to each other. If you have trouble, try this pattern:
x-x-x-x-
o--oo--o

Once you've learned these basic patterns, playing rock drum beats will be easy. We can also apply these ideas to the snare drum to make your grooves more interesting. Experiment, have fun, and happy practicing!

p.s. If the tabs don't line up on this page, copy them into a word processing program and find a font that makes all of the characters the same size.