This free drum lesson is going to take a look at two almighty drum fills from Keith Moon on the track "Baba O'Riley". Both the intro where the drums first come in and then half way through the song where the drums enter for a second time. Both showcase Keith Moon's almost random and signature sounding drum fill style.
The Who weren't as big as other bands at the time but certainly contained the biggest personalities. The Who would be nothing without Keith Moon and vice versa...in my humble opinion of course!
Lets take a look at two of Keith's famous drum fills now...
"Baba O'Riley" - Drum Fill (0:57 Album Version)
This is the drum fill that Keith enters the song with after the long synth intro.
Seeing the notation isn't enough to make this sound like Keith though, the sixteenth notes need to be highly swung. As with most drummers of this era, they were brought up on a lot of Jazz and Swing music which meant that their playing emulated this "feel". Everything was slightly swung or "shuffled". You will know what I mean when trying to play along to the original track, the sixteenth notes are not played evenly one after the other but in a shuffled/swung style instead.
As with most of Keith's drum fills, this one has the bass drum pumping out eighth notes underneath to give his hands something to play over the top off. This means that a lot of Keith fills sound quite busy because of this constant bass drum pulse underneath everything. It's certainly what gave him one of his signature sounds.
Notice the quiet snare drum note played on beat 4 (indicated within brackets). This note can be left out if desired as it's very low in the mix anyway.
"Baba O'Riley" - Drum Fill (2:32 Album Version)
Again, for this drum fill, we see Keith's bass drum pumping away underneath whilst his hands dance up and around the snare drum and toms.
The suggested sticking above is just that, suggested, and so feel free to use whatever hands you like to play this.
Notice how Keith keeps the bass drum pumping into the first bar of the drum beat. He just can't help himself, bless him!
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For this free drum lesson I thought I'd take a look at a drum fill from the song Apocalypse Please by Muse, drummed by Dominic Howard. At first listen, the drum lick doesn't sound that complicated but it's when you start to work out the sticking and then try and play it up to speed that the true greatness of this drum fill starts to emerge.
This drum fill should help to prove to drummers just how useful, exciting and fun the drum rudiments can be when used in a musical context, so lets now take a look at just how and why...
"Apocalypse Please" - Free Video Drum Fill Drum Lesson
"Apocalypse Please" - Drum Fill (0:25 Album Version)
So this is the drum fill that gets repeated a few times throughout the song. It's only two beats long (starting on beat 3 of bar 1) and is played through sixteenth note triplets. Six notes are counted in every beat of the bar.
Dominic Howard plays a flammed rudiment for the first three notes of beat 3. A flammed note followed by two more notes. He then moves up to the high tom and repeats the pattern. The last six notes of the bar are played as single strokes and move up and down the snare drum and tom toms.
The drum fill itself isn't very complicated but sounds great. The tricky part is really playing the flams smoothly within a single stroke roll and there are many ways that a drummer can play this. Lets take a look at the way I would play it first.
I play this three note flam lick as a Left Hand Flam Triplet. I'm not sure on the exact name for this but I've heard Gavin Harrison call it this so that's good enough for me
Essentially, a left hand flam is played followed by two single strokes. Because all the strokes (including the flams) are alternating sticking (RLRL) the lick is really easy to play fast.
Next, lets take a look at some alternative versions of the sticking so that you have a few options yourself...
"Apocalypse Please" - Alternative Sticking
You can try out each of these stickings in order to determine which works best for you but you might also like to learn each for their own sake. I certainly try to practice each of these stickings within my practice time as each offers a slightly different sound around the kit. Just take my word for it and give them all a go!
The first example shows the opposite sticking to my preferred method. This uses the Right Hand Flam Triplet, simply the opposite sticking to the Left Hand Flam Triplet. This sticking might not work all too well with this song though because it ends on the right hand and the right hand is need for the next section of the drum fill. It's not impossible to use though.
Example 2 shows the sticking to an official Drum Rudiment, the Flam Accent. This sticking uses both the Right and Left Hand Flam Triplet and simply alternates between the two of them. This feels great once you get it going.
The last two examples show the Flammed Swiss Triplets where the hands essentially play doubles with a flam where the two doubles meet. This was a favourite with the great drummer Tony Williams! Either the right handed version (example 3) or the left handed version (example 4) can be used but Example 4 also ends on the right hand and so can be a little tricky getting out of into the next section.
I hope you found this lesson fun and useful and I'll see you next time!
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You can purchase this book individually by clicking HERE or alternatively, you can purchase both this book plus my first book (Greatest Drum Beats & Grooves Of All Time) as a Discounted Bundle Pack. This offer also includes 124 Video Drum Beat Lessons as a FREE Bonus. Find out more by clickingHERE or by clicking the logo to the right.
In this free video drum lesson I'm going to show you some more great drum fills and drumming from Travis Barker on the song "All The Small Things". Say what you like about Blink 182, Travis' drumming shines through showing a level of class that cuts through the Bubble Gum pop.
I'm going to show you how to play two drum fills from the song All The Small Things. These two drum fills are not as standard as you might think on first listen and it was only until after I transcribed these drum licks that I discovered just how interesting they are.
Lets take a look at these two great drum fills now...
"All The Small Things" - Free Video Drum Fill Drum Lesson
"All The Small Things" - Drum Fill (0:25 Album Version)
Travis is known for his super fast single strokes around the kit and there's nothing particularly hard about that (just some regular practice over time). But when you mix up the single strokes around multiple sound sources and involve the hi-hat then things start to get a bit tastier.
In this drum fill Travis strikes the open hi hat on the '+' of beat 2 before continuing on the snare drum. He then finishes this super smooth lick with a flurry up to, and then back down from, the high tom. It all happens so fast that you're left wondering about what was just played!
"Achilles Last Stand" - Drum Fill (1:17 Album Version)
This drum fill is a bit special. Travis throws in his bass drum into the mix to give us a real linear style drum fill played at super fast speeds.
Travis moves up and around the drums for the first three notes, throws in a bass drum for the fourth note and then plays the snare drum and half open hi-hat open handed. He then drops in a second bass drum note right after the open hi-hat and snare drum. The pattern is then repeated a second time before the bar ends with four sixteenth notes played on the snare drum.
This particular fill is rather tricky to play smoothly due to the bass drum notes but well worth the effort as it just sounds so cool!
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For this free video drum lesson lets take a look at three drum fills that really stand out from the song "Achilles Last Stand" by Led Zeppelin.
John Bonham's drumming is up to it's usual exceptional standard and somehow he manages to bust drum fills at blistering speeds AND still make them groove!
The three drum fills I've chosen really showcase Bonham's diversity and imagination when it comes to drum parts. Three very different fills, all interesting and different in their own right.
You can watch the free video drum lesson teaching you how to play these fills below. The notation for each drum fill can also be found under the video.
** Apologies for the poor sound on this video. My clip MIC was running out of battery and I only noticed after. **
"Achilles Last Stand" - Drum Fill (0:28 Album Version)
This drum fill demonstrates Bonham subtlety and touch despite the fact that not every drummer might notice it.
Bonham plays a line of accent notes, starting on beat 3, for this two beat drum fill, being careful to ghost the notes in between on the '+' of beat 3 and beat 4 itself. These two ghost notes can be left out if you find it easier but definitely sound better when left in, just make sure you play them quietly!
"Achilles Last Stand" - Drum Fill (1:17 Album Version)
The speed that Bonham plays this bar of sixteenth note triplets is amazing. I really found it hard to play them like Bonham did for the video drum lesson above because they have to remain smooth and not be played too loudly...tricky when you're trying to play as FAST as possible!
Bonham moves up and around the drums starting on the snare drum, moving to the high tom on beat 3 and then down to the floor tom on beat 4.
"Achilles Last Stand" - Drum Fill (5:27 Album Version)
This drum fill starts at 5:27 and involves a simple pattern, but again played very fast. The bass drum and crash cymbals are played with alternating hands on the downbeats and the 'a' of each beat, whilst the snare drum is played on the 'e' and '+' of each beat.
Look out for the way Bonham starts the fill on the hi-hat on beat 1. This obviously isn't essential for the fill but relevant if trying to learn the song note for note though.
Please post any questions you might have about this video drum lesson on the Drums The Word Facebook Page and happy drumming to you!
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In this free video drum lesson I show you how to play the great Intro drum fill from the song "Where Eagles Dare" by Iron Maiden, drummed by Nicko McBrain.
Nicko busts out some serious chops for this drum lick, with flams and classic rock ideas all being thrown into the mix. The song is in the 12/8 time signature so the drum fill has a triplet based feel to it.
Lets take a look at this very popular drum fill now...
"Where Eagles Dare" - Intro Drum Fill (0:00 Album Version)
The drum fill is two bars long and and involves a six beat lick that's played three times. The first half of bar 1 shows this six beat pattern and you can see that the second half of bar 1 and the first half of bar 2 are played exactly the same. Only the second half of bar 2 is different.
The six beat pattern itself start with a flam and then moves into a lick that I call the "Fa-De-La-Dump". This four note triplet lick starts on the snare then moves to the high tom, floor tom and then bass drum (played right, left, right, foot). All four notes are played evenly with the bass drum falling exactly on beat 3. You can view another two free drum lessons teaching the Fa-Da-La-Dump lick by clicking here or here.
Counted beats 4, 5 and 6 of bar 1 are played on the high tom, starting with the left hand. The first six beats of bar 1 are then repeated another two times as previously mentioned.
For the second half of bar 2, Nicko stays up on the high tom and plays a Bonham style triplet lick, right hand, left hand and then the bass drum. The flam on the snare drum is played on beat 4 directly after the bass drum. You can view another two free drum lesson on the Bonham triplet lick by clicking either here or here.
It was only a matter of time before I uploaded a drum lesson for THAT DRUM SOLO from "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. Keith Moon's drumming during this 15 second break has to be on of drumming's greatest moments. I still get goose bumps listening to it!
This drum lesson was inspired by my Greatest Drum Fills List, available for viewing by clicking here. This list was compiled in order to give drummers one almighty database of great drumming moments to search through. My hope is that this list will continue to grow into the web's No.1 list of famous and popular drum fills.
I'm currently transcribing some of the best drum fills from the list with the aim of producing a new eBook and video accompaniment sometime in the next month or so, so watch this space for more news on that!
Anyway, lets now take a look at arguably Keith Moon's greatest moment on the drums...
** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **
"Won't Get Fooled Again" - Drum Solo (7:31 Album Version)
So here it is in all of it's drumming glory and the first thing you might notice is that it's not overly complicated. There are lots of toms being played but technically the drum solo doesn't require any special skills to perform...which is cool!
For the first three lines of the drum solo, Keith comes in on beat 3 of each bar. Beats 1 and 2 are empty in order for the synth keyboard to stand out and for the tension to build.
Every time Keith Moon comes in on the drums his bass drum plays a steady pulse of eighth notes underneath. His hands play over the top of this bass drum pulse without the bass drum being affected.
Keith uses a rhythmic pattern throughout the drum solo that keeps getting repeated. Right from the first bar, Keith plays a three note pattern; two sixteenth notes played on the drums with his hands and one rested. This three note pattern moves across the beats of the bar in such a way that the hands come down with the bass drum and then start in between the bass drum the nest time in an alternating manner. The bass drum occasionally pokes through the gaps left by the hands creating a continuous flow of notes.
Bars 2, 5 and 6 also have a similar idea where one tom is played followed by two snare drum notes. It's useful to spot these little themes when trying to memories the whole drum solo.
Important Note: The suggested sticking written underneath each bar are just the way I would play it and not a guarantee of the sticking Keith used (although, for the most part it is probably largely accurate). If you want to use a different sticking to get round the drums then of course you can try out your own way as well. Whatever works for you.
Notice how in bar 2 and 3 I suggest that a left hand lead might be more appropriate way to get round the drums. You can of course cross your arms over and play this part right handed if you prefer.
Keith throws in some crash cymbal stabs on the last line before pumping out a solid line of sixteenth notes just before Roger Daltry's scream. A very powerful and exciting ending to one superb drum solo.
Please contact me through the Drums The Word Facebook page here if you have any questions. Happy drumming to you!
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This free drum lesson, teaching an amazing drum fill/solo from the song Tom Sawyer by Rush, was voted for on the Drums The Word Facebook Page. You can view the fan page on Facebook by clicking here.
The drum solo that occurs at 2:33 really epitomises for me what I think Neil Peart's drumming is all about; creativity, rhythmic variation and a little showing off! Neil Peart's drum parts can be spotted a mile off because of these three aspects of his playing.
Lets now take a look at this four bar mini drum solo in a little more detail...
** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **
"Tom Sawyer" - Drum Fill/Solo (2:33 Album Version)
First off, this is not easy to play. The speed of the notes and the rhythmic complexity of some of the sections require both fast single strokes and a powerful sense of where the beat is. Saying that though, this is can be learnt by most drummers due to the fact that it doesn't require any specialised techniques to play.
The first bar starts with some cymbal and bass drum crashes which then move onto thirty second notes around the toms, explained below...
Important Note: Neil plays the tom notes in the first bar down multiple tom toms on the original recording. Because most drummers don't have a 17 piece drum set(?!) I re-wrote his parts to work on a standard three tom kit instead, as shown above.
Look out for the single crash cymbal and bass drum hidden on the 'e' of beat 4 in bar 1. This can catch you out...it does me!
For bar 2, Neil plays five crash and bass drum notes in a row, ending on beat 2 and played with the single bas drum foot. You can use the double pedal if you prefer of course. He then moves onto beat 3 of the bar to play a rather cool rhythmic idea. The bars below demonstrate how this part is put together...
"Tom Sawyer" - Triplet Construction
The first bar shows a simplified version of the lick that starts on beat 3 of bar 2 made up from basic eighth note triplets. Each group of three triplet notes takes up a whole beat of the bar. The second bar shows how the bass drum is inserted in between each of these eighth triplet notes. The third bar is the final version of the drum lick showing that each note in the second bar has been doubled up to produce the final rhythm.
You may notice that in the final version of the lick, the hands are tracing the eighth note triplet rhythm. If you can understand this rhythmic concept and start to hear the lick as triplets, then you will find this part much easier to play in time.
Ok, so on to bar 3 and we see a flam on beat 1, just after the triplet lick above, a quick roll down the toms and then this is followed by some rhythmically syncopated crash and bass drum stabs.
Neil Peart plays both the floor tom and medium tom together for beat 1 of bar 4 before throwing out crash and thirty second note tom flurries before the end of the bar. The crash and bass drum notes move across the beats of the bar and are not played on each downbeat of the bar.
So there you go, I hope this all made sense. Have fun with this cool drum fill/solo and email me if you have any questions. Speak soon!
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In this free drum lesson I'm going to show you what Dave Grohl plays in the Drum Solo for the outro of Song For The Dead by Queens Of The Stone Age. I have already written a free drum lesson and video drum lesson teaching the Intro Drum Solo to Song For The Dead, you can view that lesson and video drum lesson by clicking here.
This lesson was inspired by the Greatest Drum Fills List I compiled a few weeks back, now containing 100's of famous and popular drum fills and drum solos from some of music's greatest drummers. You can view the list by clicking here. The outro drum solo to Song For The Dead is listed in this Best Drum Fill list along with 100's of other great drum fills and licks.
The reason this drum solo sounds so great comes down to two things; one is that Dave plays his triplets and single stroke sixteenths incredibly smoothly and evenly, making them sound even faster and more powerful than your average drummer. The other reason is that Dave's drums were tuned and recorded using a frequency of sounds that would make any drummers ear...err, mouth water...especially mine!
Lets now take a look at this great drum solo in all it's thumping glory. Play on...
** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **
"Song For The Dead" - Outro Drum Solo (5:29 Album Version)
The tempo of the Drum Solo above is through the roof but luckily Dave doesn't play anything too complicated. It sounds complicated when Dave plays it because it's so fast and the tom parts are hard to distinguish, but once you work out what it is he is actually playing, it all becomes a lot simpler.
The first two bars show the double time drum groove that Dave plays leading into the first bar of triplets. For the next four and a bit lines, Dave just plays a simple "Bonham Triplet" style lick based around three notes; right hand, left hand and bass drum. All played evenly and smoothly. Check out an old drum lesson for this famous drum fill idea by clickinghere.
Dave moves between the snare drum and the two toms to create the rolling snare and tom tom sound. His hands are the only thing that's moving, the bass drum is always on the third triplet note of each beat.
On beat 3, of bar 3, on line 3 Dave begins to double up the snare drum notes by playing both the right and left hand on the snare drum. This continues up to bar 2 of line 5 where Dave moves to single handed sixteenth notes (four to every beat). Because there are now four notes to every beat instead of three triplet notes, the drums sound like they speed up but the beats of the bar are still counted the same.
After playing four sixteenths on the high tom, Dave moves back down to the snare drum for lines 6 and 7 where he pays the bass drum every beat of the bar, on the first note of every four snare drum notes. This is played SUPER fast so your single stoke roll is going to have to be up to scratch!!
The song and drum solo both end with a single crash and bass drum.
Have fun extracting the Bonham Triplet lick from this drum solo and exploring with it in your own playing. Dave Grohl has showed us one great way to move it round the drums, now it's up to you to try out your own cool ideas.
How get your arse in that practice room!
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One of the most iconic drum fill or drum solo sections found in the Top 350 Famous Drum Fills & Solos list is the drum solo in the song "Aja" by Steely Dan and drummed by Steve Gadd. This amazing little piece of drumming history has inspired and excited drummers for decades, myself included!
I've already written a blog drum lesson on this lick before (you can view it here). But in this free video drum lesson I am not only going to show you how to play this great drum fill idea but also how you can take it even further and create brand new drum fill and drum lick ideas from it!
** FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download all the sheet music for this lesson as a pdf document. Simply click the "Attachment" link at the bottom of this page **
Here is the classic drum fill idea that occurs at 5:19 into the song Aja by Steely Dan.
In the video, I leave out the hi-hat foot part as I felt this wasn't essential to the idea and drum lick that Steve Gadd was trying to express. The version I play in the video is shown on the downloadable .pdf document available at the bottom of this page.
In the original drum lesson I wrote for this drum lick (available here again) I created three suggestions as to how you might take this drum lick further. In this video drum lesson I suggest two more variations and demonstrate them to you. The first of the two is shown below...
"Aja" - Taking The Drum Fills Further (Suggestion 1)
As you can see, it takes two groups of six and combines them with two groups of three.
The snare drum ends the lick on beat 4 demonstrating how the hands, and not just the bass drum, can end the pattern on a downbeat.
"Aja" - Taking The Drum Fills Further (Suggestion 2)
This is my favourite variation which is constructed from two groups of 9 (one 6 and one 3). This moves across the beats of the bar in a very pleasing manner.
Another suggestion can be found in the downloadable .pdf drum notation below.
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In this free drum lesson I'm taking another song from the Best 350 Drum Fills Of All Time list and working out how to play the great drum fills it contains. This time the song is "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, featuring the drumming talents of the sadly missed Mitch Mitchell.
Mitch Mitchell is famous amongst drummers for his super fast and impressive hand/sticking work. He would often blaze around the drums at lightning speed playing licks that most drummers would kill for! He also enjoyed using the drum rudiments in a way that made them exciting and fun!
This song features four great and popular drum fills. We will be looking at each of these blistering licks in turn. In the free video drum lesson itself I go over how to play only the top two but included the other two below as an extra bonus for you to enjoy.
For many other famous and popular drum fills, check out the Greatest Drum Fills list by clicking here. If you have any of your own suggestions for drum fills that I might have missed then please email me.
FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: You can download the music as a .PDF document by clicking the link titled "jimi-hendrix-hey-joe-drum-fills.pdf" found at the bottom of this page.
Neil Peart's drum parts can be spotted a mile off because of these three aspects of his playing.
