Drum Course Beginner Lesson 5

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Grips and Fulcrums

Counting Methods

Learning to use counting methods effectively is incredibly important when it comes to learning and understanding rhythm in depth. Here are 2 examples of how to count along with different measurements of time. When counting along make sure you loop the phrases as this will be useful when playing drum grooves.

Below is a bar of eighth notes (quavers). There are 2 notes per beat when counting eighth notes. To mark which beat we are on we will use the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. In between the beats we have what we call 'off beats'. These will be marked with &'s.

This next example uses sixteenth notes (semi quavers). There are four notes per beat when counting sixteenth notes. To mark all parts of the beat we shall be adding an 'e' for the second quarter of the beat and an 'a' for the fourth quarter. For example if we were to count one beat it would look like this '1 e & a'.