Meshuggah’s drummer was only 19 when he joined the award-winning band. Tomas Haake is now known as one of the most influential drummers in heavy music, and for good reason.

From his double kick skills and technical prowess to originating one of the most iconic metal drum parts of all time, let’s talk about why Tomas Haake has become such a legend in the drumming world.

1. Double bass mastery

Tomas has been dominating the double kick since day one. If you’ve heard tracks like “The Abysmal Eye” and “New Millennium Cyanide Christ”, you’ll know what we mean:

In “Clockworks”, the snare follows chaotic guitar rhythms while the right-left kicks follow in a triplet formation:

And then there’s his relentless consistency, which you can hear in songs like “The Demon’s Name Is Surveillance” – one of the most ‘badass’ shuffles ever:

We can’t talk about Tomas Haake’s insane double bass skills without mentioning one song in particular. Released in 2008, the kick pattern is often referenced alongside beats decades older as one of the best metal drum beats.

“It was one of those songs that we didn’t know if I was gonna be able to do it. So for a few months, we didn’t know if we were gonna have it on the album or not.”

Tomas Haake

The song in question, of course, is “Bleed” – a track metal drummers like to dare each other to play, much like how classic rock guitarists taunt their friends with “Freebird”.

“Bleed” is comprised of a herta on the feet (RLR L RLR L) with a straight forward beat on the hands. It sounds like two time signatures against each other as the herta moves over the barline – but people can still groove and headbang to it.

As a hard-hitting metal drummer, Tomas says he had to change his approach on this song. Instead of pushing through using straight power, he needed to ‘tap dance’ more softly to keep his feet going for 5 minutes.

He apparently spent just as long working out the drums for this track as all the other tracks on the album combined – probably because the herta keeps evolving throughout the song.

Here’s the intro to “Bleed”:

Can you play it?

2. Unconventional drum grooves

Meshuggah’s drum parts are intriguing but “still have a flow”, according to Tomas Haake. He typically programs his drum ideas, which gives him more time and control to play around with the parts.

Tomas’ kicks or snare often follow the guitar rhythms, which can be chaotic and seemingly disjointed.

Check out “Qualms Of Reality”:

Or “Pineal Gland Optics”, or the groove around the 3-minute mark in “ObZen”:

“Spasm” has an unusual groove that uses the kick and snare to outline the low-pitched guitar patterns:

At the beginning of “I Am Colossus”, Tomas has his left foot on the hi-hats and keeps the snare drum steady while his accents follow the guitar through an offbeat triplet rhythm:

For even more accented chaos, listen to “Phantoms” around the 3-minute mark:

3. Polymetric madness

Meshuggah’s style is built on unconventional rhythms you can still headbang to. Listen to “New Millennium Cyanide Christ” – it’s almost entirely in 4/4, even though the patterns go over the bar line. Believe it or not, there’s only one bar in odd time:

“Rational Gaze” is in 4/4, but it may not feel like it:

Here’s some more over-the-bar line madness in “Future Breed Machine”:

And in “Do Not Look Down”, the guitar line is in 17/16 – until you get to the verse where Tomas makes it clear he’s playing in 4/4:

4. A shifting backbeat

We’re so used to hearing a backbeat on 2 and 4 (or only 3), and Tomas doesn’t always give that to us. Because he often uses the snare drum to emphasize other rhythms, Meshuggah’s grooves tend to have a ton of syncopation.

In the interlude of “Rational Gaze”, the rhythm is the same as in the intro – but without the backbeat, it feels completely different.

And then there’s “Stengah”, which is full of classic Tomas Haake phrasing:

In “Corridor Of Chameleons”, Tomas gives us a 5/8 pattern punctuated by snare and kicks. The traditional backbeat is absent until around 3 mins into the track:

“Concatenation” has no traditional backbeat, and “Sum” abandons the traditional song form altogether.

For another slew of syncopated snare hits, listen to “The Exquisite Machinery Of Torture”. There’s a 7-note pattern that hit the 1st, 4th, and 5th notes through triplets – which makes the backbeat seem like it’s coming in these crazy spots.

But it’s actually a normal halftime 4/4!

5. Ghost notes everywhere

Tomas Haake’s signature style wouldn’t be complete without his dedicated use of ghost notes. He often uses them to fill in between accents. Check out the funky, syncopated ghost notery in “Sickening”:

Most of the songs in this article feature Tomas’ ghost notes, but they’re especially fun to watch as he adds even more live, like in this drum cam footage of “Stengah”:

Complex double bass action. Syncopated snare and chaotic accents. Over-the-bar line playing and ghost notes galore. Tomas Haake set a new standard for metal drumming, pioneering an entire style with Meshuggah in the process.

If you want to learn to play like Tomas – or play along to songs from other progressive metal and djent artists – grab a 7-day free trial with Drumeo. With over 5000 play-along tracks from bands like Meshuggah, Sepultura, Periphery and Animals As Leaders, you’ll be able to slow down and loop songs while you learn.

Until his untimely passing in 2018, Pantera’s Vinnie Paul was one of the sickest drummers in heavy music. His crushing drum parts are instantly recognizable to metalheads, and he was the perfect rhythmic counterpart to bandmate, guitarist, and brother Dimebag Darrell (1966-2004).

Pantera achieved things most other metal bands wish they could. For example, Far Beyond Driven is one of the heaviest albums to ever hit #1 on the Billboard charts. Vinnie’s beats gave the riffs his own brand of oomph, and the band wouldn’t have been the same without him.

Looking at his work in Pantera, Damageplan, Hellyeah and Rebel Meets Rebel, here are 5 reasons why Vinnie Paul was a drumming genius.

1. Heavy driving grooves

Vinnie was known for intense grooves and an enormous tom sound. You could expect tons of double bass, but also tons of feel.

Listen to “Primal Concrete Sledge” from the Cowboys From Hell album for major heaviness:

In the song “Use My Third Arm”, Vinnie accents the guitar on his largest rack tom in between off-beat hi-hat shots and constant double kick:

The chorus of “Drag The Waters” may be simple, but it’s so heavy it’ll make your grandma headbang:

While he could do a lot using only single strokes (“13 Steps To Nowhere” has a great tom pattern punctuated with accents and ruffs), Vinnie would sometimes throw in a paradiddle (like in the syncopated groove in “Shedding Skin”).

In the song “Slaughtered”, he uses a double paradiddle to create a tasty, syncopated groove:

The Pantera drummer took 18 months away from music following Dimebag’s death, but eventually helped form the supergroup Hellyeah with members of Mudvayne and Nothingface – and it was like he’d never stopped.

Listen to “One Thing” by Hellyeah where 16th note triplets slide in between straight 16th notes:

2. Not afraid to leave space

In the metal world, drummers are often praised for playing a ton of notes. Vinnie’s lean and mean drumming stemmed from being able to play – and not play – exactly when he needed to.

The reason “Moment Of Truth” by Damageplan, “This Love” by Pantera, and the end of “Domination” by Pantera sound so heavy is because they’re so beautifully simple.

Don’t forget “I’m Broken” and “Floods” by Pantera.

3. Signature drum fills

Vinnie’s fills are just as integral to the songs as Dimebag’s guitar riffs.

Check out this example from the chorus of “Walk” by Pantera, one of the biggest hits from their Vulgar Display Of Power record. Talk about a recognizable drum part for any metal drummer:

It’s not always about “big licks”. Sometimes, just pushing one shot off the beat can have a huge impact, like in Pantera’s “5 Minutes Alone”.

“Drink Drank Drunk” by Hellyeah has a cool 4-bar drum break at the end of the guitar solo:

And the intro of Hellyeah’s “Say When” has an awesome triplet section between the toms and kicks:

Fills can make a song memorable or kill the momentum, and Vinnie’s always had a purpose.

4. Brutal intensity

Vinnie Paul helped Pantera get even heavier on The Great Southern Trendkill, especially on the title track and “Suicide Note, Pt. 2”.

His intensity doesn’t just come from speed; one of the most intense double kick patterns of the ’90s is on “Becoming”, where he creates triplets using a double stroke on his right foot – something not many metal drummers were doing at the time.

Let’s not forget about the mid-tempo, driving double kick groove and syncopated ride bell pattern in “Domination”:

5. Outside-the-box drumming

Vinnie Paul was mostly known for his powerful sound and feel, but he could still create technical and creative drum parts (“Pole Rider” by Hellyeah features a cowbell and vibraslap).

You can find arguably one of the best 7/8 grooves in metal in the Pantera track “I’m Broken”:

One of Vinnie’s ‘tricks’ was beat displacement – when notes are shifted to unexpected positions. In “5 Minutes Alone”, the guitar line in the verse makes it clear the part is in 4/4, but Vinnie plays on the offbeat for a bar to flip the beat onto the ‘and’. Even if you know what’s happening, it might throw you off so you hear it as a bar of 9/8 and a bar of 7/8:

Vinnie also does this in “Matter Of Time” by Hellyeah, where he pushes the beat back and forth in a 2-bar phrase. The pre-chorus in “Wake Up” by Damageplan also has an unusual beat where he throws his accents off from the quarter note.

The list could go on, but we’ll end it here. This is our tribute to the founding father of groove metal, a huge inspiration to many metal and hard rock drummers: Vinnie Paul.

Getcha’ pull!

Did you recently treat yourself to a double kick pedal for the first time? Or have you had one on your kit for a while but the slave pedal has been gathering dust? Get your feet flying with these five songs even a beginner can learn!

All of these patterns are relatively straight forward while still sounding cool, and they’re fun to play, even if you’re starting at a slower tempo. And that’s the key: start slow. You’ll be able to improve your control and lock in the muscle memory you’ll need to play faster tempos.

1. “Red Hot” – Motley Crue

238 BPM sounds really fast, but it’s just 8th notes on the kick. If you start slow, you’ll be able to pull it off, no problem. It’s a simple right left on the feet with a basic rock backbeat on your hands.

2. “The Four Horsemen” – Metallica

Imagine taking the famous double bass triplet pattern from “One” and cutting it in half. This gallop-style burst is an 8th note triplet on the kicks, followed by a snare hit.

3. “Down With The Sickness” – Disturbed

This interesting syncopated double kick pattern has a cool offbeat snare drum shot at the end. Try it yourself!

4. “Domination” – Pantera

With big open quarter notes on the hands, the double bass pattern consists of syncopated 16th notes. It’s a four bar phrase with a fun variation in the final bar. Learning this will help you work on endurance and nail those off-beat shots.

5. “Under A Glass Moon” – Dream Theater

Here’s another cool syncopated 16th note rhythm. Your hands aren’t just doing a standard backbeat this time time; it’s got a little more creativity to it.

What do you think of this list? Are there other beginner double bass songs you like to practice?

When it comes to the thundering kicks that changed drumming history, you should get familiar with the five iconic double kick grooves on this list.

Not only are these some of the most popular songs in metal and rock, but these songs have unique double bass-driven drum beats that help define the tune. While one long roll might be impressive to listen to, these interesting kick patterns helped these songs become iconic.

Everyone will have their own list of top double bass songs – this one consists of Aaron Edgar’s picks – but considering when some of these tracks came out, they helped define the art of heavy drumming as we know it!

1. Metallica – “One”

This is about as iconic as double kick gets. Like the double bass equivalent of Stairway To Heaven, if you’re at a music store, you know someone in the drum room is probably playing this song. Your hands play a simple rock groove with big open hats and snare on the 2 and 4. Your feet play 16th note triplets starting with the first hi-hat hit until your snare hits. Rinse and repeat.

2. Van Halen – “Hot For Teacher”

This track pretty much put double bass shuffles on the map: playing triplets on the kick but skipping the middle one so it sounds like a gallop. For the ride bell pattern, just play the first two notes of each triplet. You’ll get a strange but cool beat when you stitch it all together.

3. Slipknot – “Before I Forget”

This song helped propel Slipknot to stardom, and Joey Jordison was one of the most searched-for drummers online in the early 2000s. It’s fun to play, and heavy and funky with syncopation and cool off-beat shots. The first three bars are the same, with a variation in the fourth bar.

4. Pantera – “Cowboys From Hell”

There’s a lot going on here, and it starts with triplets before switching to 16th notes. First, lead with the snare drum on the quarter notes over the triplet kick pattern. Then go into the straight 16ths on the feet in the final bar.

5. Meshuggah – “Bleed”

This relentless groove is one of the most ridiculous and epic out there, especially considering how it evolves throughout the song. Metal drummers like to challenge their friends to learn this herta bass drum pattern.

The easiest way to start learning is to play consistent RRL with your kicks, then stick in an additional left between the two rights. It’s essentially a three note pattern. With your hands playing a typical rock beat over top, the result is a cool polyrhythmic sound.

Which double bass grooves do you think are the most iconic? Do you agree with this list or did we miss any of your favorites?

What is ‘Groove Glue’?

‘Groove Glue’, in its most common form, is anchoring time with your left foot on the hi-hat pedal. This is where you’d pedal a consistent pattern with your hats underneath grooves, fills and transitions. The most common patterns for this are quarter notes, eighth notes or on the upbeats (‘ands’), but the options are virtually limitless. You can alternate splash and closed notes, use clave rhythms, or any other pattern you can dream up, provided you can play it consistently enough that it serves as a foundation for the rest of your playing to adhere.

If you’ve never tried this before, a great way to get started with left foot anchoring is in the context of a four-on-the-floor beat. Below is notation for this, first with 1/4 note LF-hats, then with 1/8th note LF-hats, and finally offbeat hats.

In this context, 1/4 notes will line up with your bass drums so that your feet do the same thing, 1/8th notes will line up with your right hand, so RH/LF does the same job, and offbeats will feel like your feet are ‘walking.’

The power of this anchoring concept becomes apparent when you start to use it through transitions. Transitions are when you change from one thing to another; for example, a verse to a chorus. Through practice, your left foot’s pattern will feel comfortable and stable, like a stage for the rest of your limbs to play music. You can think about it like a metronome you’re physically playing; it stays the same through your beats and your fills.

Internalizing this concept deeply enough to become useful is benchmarked by when you no longer need to give it any attention to play the pattern, and when you can tell it’s solid and comfortable without actively focusing on it. Once you’ve developed it to this level, you can think about the beats and fills you play as lining up to that ‘self click,’ where every piece will either land on or in between the left-foot notes (or in some clear pattern-based relationship in more advanced phrasings); this is the essence of Groove Glue.

If you want to learn more about anchoring time with your left foot, check out my live lesson “Your Left Foot Anchor” and Jeff Salem’s lesson “Developing Time With Your Hi-Hat Foot” on Drumeo.

The next level

When you’re comfy with the initial concept (using your left foot to anchor a solid pattern to ground the rest of your playing), you can start to think about other limbs and rhythms in this way. For example, try this with your right hand in an 8th note beat like we had in the previous section.

To get a feel for what I mean, first pick up a stick with your right hand and air-drum a string of ‘large’ 8th notes; by ‘large,’ I mean the tip of the stick is moving at least 24 inches. Try to do this with a loose grip; you don’t want to be tense or feel like you’re forcing it. You’re looking for a large, gentle motion where you notice the weight of the stick and what it feels like moving through space.

Keep air-drumming these 8th notes until you can find a consistent feel, a comfortable, unchanging swing where none of the notes are any higher or lower than each other. This is what you want to focus on, what this motion actually feels like. Take a mental snapshot of this feeling, combined with what it looks like in the stick, your hand and your arm; we’ll be trying to find this comfortably consistent motion within a beat in the next step.

Next, try to play a beat where your right hand is only playing 8th notes. Sink into it for long enough that you no longer need to think to play it, and can sit back and focus on how it feels. If your right hand feels the same as it did when it was isolated, perfect – try to perceive the beat you’re playing as everything else is lining up to your right hand’s consistent pattern.

If you picked a beat that you find challenging, it becomes less likely that your right hand will still feel that same level of comfort. You may notice the motion looks and feels choppy and is likely to be with inconsistent heights. When this happens, play the beat until it’s back on autopilot and pay attention to your right hand. You don’t necessarily try to change it in an active sense, play the pattern, notice what’s happening and try to sink further into relaxation while you do it. The more you tense and ‘try,’ the less likely you’ll be able to find that consistent motion and feeling we had with the right hand isolated.

By paying attention to relaxation and your right hand instead of the pattern, you’ll find the sensation of your kicks and snares getting magnetically drawn to the consistent right hand pattern, either on or between the notes. Once you can lock into that, groove and pocket are an emergent property of that relaxation and focus.

The New Breed approach

Another place to use this concept is Gary Chester’s classic instructional book, The New Breed. The 39 systems are all patterns that you autopilot as you focus on the material from the reading pages. Paying attention to how the systems feel while you play them can be all the feedback you need to know whether something sounds good or is in the pocket.

In the same vein of what we did with your right hand, get used to the kinesthetic feel of playing the systems on their own and then try to find that level of comfort while adding the reading pages. In problematic areas, you’ll notice the system starts to feel challenging, or that you’re tensing your muscles and lose the loose, comfortable feel. In these cases, it’s best to take a small section (2-4 bars or so) and loop it until you can execute it with that level of comfort before moving on.

The more material you master in this way, the better your time and pocket will be. To dive into The New Breed even further, check out this live lesson I taught on the subject (you need to be an Edge member to see it though).

A lot of people interpret that idea as a reason to double-down on their style of choice, the rock drummer agonizing over his or her ability to do an excellent AC/DC impression, or metal drummers who’ll eat, sleep, breathe and exclusively practice metal. These approaches can result in incredibly solid drummers within their genre, with an unfortunate side effect of sounding one-dimensional and without much personality.

If you’re only able to do what’s necessary for the job, you’ll have trouble in situations where something more, or even just different, is asked of you. Branching into styles beyond your ‘faves’ absorbs different ideas, feels and licks into your playing; they essentially become a part of your sound, which is something you can bring back with you into your favored styles. An excellent example of stylistic blending is Martin López on some of the mid-period Opeth albums, bringing a Latin flavor to Opeth’s Progressive Death Metal sound.
 

If you’re only able to do what’s necessary for the job, you’ll have trouble in situations where something more, or even just different, is asked of you.

Trying different musical styles is a great way to start expanding your horizons. Once you get the general feels and patterns of a new style/genre down, you’ll quickly learn that many of the independence and physical aspects directly relate to what you already know. Beyond styles, you can try to master rhythm directly by taking on all of the subdivisions in-depth, plus polyrhythms and other advanced rhythmic concepts. You can (and I find this to be the case often) stumble upon unexpectedly exciting ideas, rhythms and phrases when you explore unconventional/unrelated material.

Another massive advantage of expanding your horizons is that it builds headroom within your abilities. When I first started to gig professionally, I vividly remember having a feeling of musical invincibility. For myself, at no point in time did I ever feel the need to ‘keep it practical.’ If anything, I felt annoyed at the idea of exclusive practicality, instead favoring anything I felt was challenging or rhythmically unique into my practice time. When it came time to start gigging and learning songs assigned to me by bandleaders or songwriters, it was immediately apparent that nothing I was being asked to learn required even an ounce of thought beyond writing an accurate chart. When you work toward proficiency beyond anything you’d reasonably be asked to do, the result is a feeling of effortlessness that allows you to focus on feel, dynamics, and connecting with the other members in your group rather than struggling to overcome musical challenges on stage. It’s a beautiful and liberating feeling!
 

Another massive advantage of expanding your horizons is that it builds headroom within your abilities.

 
Gavin Harrison put it excellently in the form of a metaphor at the end of his second book, Rhythmic Perspectives: “It’s like driving down the road in a small car (say, a Mini). When you reach 70 mph, you are getting close to the limits of that engine, and it feels as if the car is really going fast even though you are holding a steady 70 mph. It’s taking all of your strength and concentration just to hold the thing on the road. If you’re cruising down the road in a big car (like a Jaguar, for instance), 70 mph is absolutely no trouble at all. In fact, it doesn’t even feel as if you’re going very fast. You know the car is capable of doing a much higher speed, and you know that it’s there if you need it. You feel more comfortable and confident while your mind is free to think of other things, such as where you are heading (or how much extra this Jag is costing you in insurance).”

This concept extends beyond the instrument as well. Many people find that exploring hobbies and interests outside of music adds a richness and expanded realm of experience into your art in subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle!) ways. The more well-rounded you are as a person, you’ll find your voice on the instrument takes on a character that is uniquely your own!

This disgruntling generally seems to be the case when our anti-triggerist can play at a certain level achieved through hard work. This person then sees someone playing lightly with triggers in a way that is beyond what they can do with their skillset, and then proceeds to go on about how “triggers are cheating”, and that’s the only way the drummer on stage was able to play that way. This is merely a petty jab that comes from insecurity.

While triggers are tools that can be used to make acoustically unrealistic things happen, is that really so bad? The fact of the matter is simple: triggers are a tool that creates midi data from vibrations and that’s it. How one uses triggers and the resulting midi data is entirely up to the person.

Let’s look a little deeper into some of the more nuanced ways to use these tools.

Trigger Applications

Sound replacement

If you’re playing live and only sending electronic sounds to the front of house, you can use drum sounds or anything you want this way! One thing that’s nice about this approach is that you can entirely change your drum sounds for what the song needs at the click of a button. Better yet, if you’re running a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), you can automate changes in the same way that guitar players can automate their patch switches, alleviating their need for pedalboards live.

Sound reinforcement

This is when you take a blend of acoustic and electronic sounds for clarity or presence, usually with a similar-sounding drum or even a studio recording of the same drum. Microphones can pick up a lot of bleed from other sound sources, whereas samples are clear. Triggers, in this sense, can reduce unwanted noise levels and lead to a cleaner live sound.

Sound augmentation

This is my favorite way to use triggers: adding different sounds to your drums! You can do this with totally alien sounds, or percussion, or you can simply add ambiance. In my studio, I like to play a pair of snares to my left: a 10×7 Sonor SQ2 Acrylic tuned tightly beside a 16×10 VK Aluminum tuned extremely low with loose wires. When I rimshot the 10″, the 16” adds a dark sizzle underneath, which is something I’d never be able to create live acoustically. With triggers, I can sample the underside microphone from the 16” and blend in as much as I want, electronically, without any bleed!

Other ways to use MIDI data

You can use triggers to record a MIDI performance into your DAW, which can be a great way to do demo drum recording if you don’t have studio gear. There’s no rule confining that MIDI drum data to drums, either! Try copying your kick line into a guitar, bass, or synth instrument, and you immediately have music to complement your drums! You can even auto-snap the notes to melodic scales you want to work within.

Beyond Audio

MIDI can even be used to control non-audio devices. For example, DrumLites can be set to flash whenever you hit a drum. Or you can set MIDI data to control stage lights!

Whether you’re using triggers to create the acoustically impossible, control lighting, or simply add some punch to your live drum sound, the devices themselves are innocent! They’re just another tool available for musicians to use creatively.

So quit your whining and go be creative!

*This article contains affiliate links, which means we might earn a small commission from the product seller if you make a purchase. For more info, check out our privacy page.

In the time between injury and surgery, my right side was able to correct itself with a knee brace. The left, possibly in overcompensation for my right, ended up being a little worse off and was the knee I had my surgery on. In this time leading up to the operation, I took a break from freelance gigging so I wouldn’t be hauling heavy gear around with my compromised knees. The last thing I needed was to make my injury worse by accident.

I kept practicing and working in the studio on various video and writing projects, and here was where I started to notice an unexpected bright side in the technique department. When I’d play the drums, it didn’t exacerbate my injuries, but I became overly sensitive to holding tension in my muscles. This over-sensitivity was great! I had been working on trying to eliminate body tension in my playing for a good year or two, and this heightened awareness put a magnifying glass on how far I had left to go.
 

I became overly sensitive to holding tension in my muscles…and this heightened awareness put a magnifying glass on how far I had left to go.

 
In the year and a half or so between that realization and my surgery, I spent the majority of my time practicing in a hyper-focused way. My only goal was to play the piece I was working on (which was only four bars long) with as little body tension as physically possible. It seemed like every few weeks there was another substantial breakthrough, all of which stemmed from this heightened awareness of what my body felt like while I was playing the drums.

Once my surgery rolled around, I believe it was this awareness that helped me pull through as good as new in only a couple of weeks. My surgery was first thing in the morning, and they had me walking on my own only a couple of hours after leaving the operating room. Not particularly well, mind you, but walking nonetheless!

Since I wasn’t particularly hurting that evening, I figured I would sit down and see what happens. I started by playing without using my left foot at all, only resting it on the pedal. After a few minutes, I went for it and added the left foot. I promptly burst out laughing because when I tried to play a few notes, they were quite late! My left foot wasn’t cooperating; he had had a rough day, so I let him off the hook and called it for the moment.

I spent the next week or so casually jamming, starting with a note or two, to full on random improvising. When I felt ready to get back to work, I sat down with the same piece I had been working on and played it moderately slow without a metronome, letting my body play it how it wanted to, with my focus on letting go of all body tension. To my surprise, it was easy to stay relaxed that soon after surgery.

This level of awareness has been seeping into everything I play lately. It bears repeating. I was only practicing one small section of one song; this is the type of thing that seeps its way deep into your playing.

With the advice in this article, remember, I didn’t jump in and start pounding away with the injury. I took getting back into playing slowly, especially after the surgery. Most importantly, the impact that comes from hitting a drum didn’t have any noticeable effect on my knees. Make sure to listen to your body if you have an injury and want to play the drums. It shouldn’t hurt to hit them. If you’re unsure, check with your doctor to be safe!

I know it sucks to get hurt, but if you keep an open mind and try to use what your body is feeding back to you as a technique microscope, you can get some pretty amazing results!

Polyrhythms aren’t just for advanced drummers! Everyone has to start somewhere, and if you’re new to polyrhythms, Tool’s “Jambi” is a good place to get your feet wet.

This “four over three” pattern is arguably the most overused polyrhythm on the planet, and that’s probably because it sounds awesome and is easy enough for beginners.

In this video, you’ll learn to nail the main pattern in “Jambi” in four steps:

1. Starting in 3/4, play 16th notes on your hi-hats, accenting the quarter note. Try it with a metronome, slowly at first, and repeating it until you’ve got it down.
2. This polyrhythm fits perfectly into 3/4, so we’re going to create four evenly spaced notes across that bar of 3/4. Play the bass drum on every third 16th note.
3. Once you’ve played through this a few times, forget about the 16th notes you were doing on the hi-hat. That part isn’t what Danny Carey does in the track; it’s just to help you nail the polyrhythm and understand where the notes fall in relation to one another. Pull those 16th notes and just play quarter notes on the hi-hat.
4. Next, add in the back beat: play the snare drum every second quarter note, and finally move your right hand from the hi-hat to the china.

Click here for the download track so you can play along!

You can apply this polyrhythm all over the place. If you liked this lesson, check out Aaron’s course on Drumeo, “The Polyrhythms Of Tool”. It includes breakdowns for more songs, plus a bunch of playalong tracks at full and slower tempos to get you jamming.

Click here to download the jam track so you can play along!

In this video, Aaron Edgar breaks down the 7 over 3 polyrhythm from “Invincible” off Tool’s long-awaited new album, Fear Inoculum.

For those new to polyrhythms, don’t worry: you’ll be able to go through it step by step and have the opportunity to embellish later. Go as slow as you need to.

First, focus on the kick drum. If you’re having trouble feeling beat one of each bar, use a crash or do something to make that beat feel more obvious. Next, add the toms. Finally, bring in the crashes.

Fear Inoculum is Tool’s first album in over a decade! If you like this material – or Danny Carey’s writing – check out “The Polyrhythms of Tool”, a full course inside Drumeo.

After more than a decade and a half of playing music for a living, my headspace wasn’t quite the “living the dream” experience I had always imagined it to be. I was doing plenty of great projects and I had knocked out my entire list of life goals more than once. I had drum tunnel vision, spending every waking moment either playing, practicing, teaching, or writing. I thought this was the best path to achieve my goals. For all intents and purposes, my career seemed to reinforce this message. In hindsight, I didn’t see that I was actually missing something.

Effortless Mastery

By Kenny Werner

The moment my resistance to reading lifted was on a long drive to a gig out of town with a guitar player friend of mine. He seemed to radiate a new level of chill I’d never seen come from him before. On the drive, we got to talking about life, and specifically mindset. He told me about a book called Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner that really helped him with some of his issues, both on and off the instrument. This sounded like exactly the type of thing I needed.

The following day I went and bought a copy of Effortless Mastery. I was still a little apprehensive about reading but I was trying to keep an open mind. Little did I know, the following moments would grip me into the book and make a reading addict out of me almost immediately. The book opens with “The realm of the gifted has always seemed to be an exclusive club. The common belief is that ‘Some of us have it, some of us don’t.’”

The concept of this book is that mastery is something that is available to everyone. The book goes on to explain many of the mental and emotional things we go through as artists, and offers clear direction on how to shift yourself onto a path toward mastery. Even things in my head where I thought I was alone were addressed directly. The best part is that you’ll learn to treat yourself better. It not only opened up music to me in a way that I found immensely helpful, but this new path has also helped me evolve into a better person!

Not bad for the first book I had ever read recreationally!

In Effortless Mastery, Werner references many more relevant books for artists in any discipline at any stage of their development. That’s my favorite thing about non-fiction: almost every book I enjoy leads to numerous others! Two of my favorites (although there are many more) are Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel and Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovich.

Zen in the Art of Archery was the next book I read. The author, Eugen Herrigel is a German philosophy professor. While teaching at the University of Tokyo, he took it upon himself to take up Zen, which in Japan is learned through art forms such as archery. Learning in this way is more about spiritual growth through an art form. I was fascinated to find an uncanny parallel between musical headspace and what Eugen describes in some of his experiences learning archery and, more specifically, Zen.

Free Play embodies the concept of art for art’s sake. It discusses the creative process and dives deep into improvisation. I even learned one of my favorite words from this book: “galumphing”! Nachmanovich explains, “Galumphing is the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation of activity. It is profligate, excessive, exaggerated, uneconomical. We galumph when we hop instead of walk, when we take the scenic route instead of the efficient one, when we play a game whose rules demand a limitation of our powers, when we are interested in means rather than an end. We voluntarily create obstacles in our path and then enjoy overcoming them.” It’s not just fun to say, it’s an accurate description of how I feel when I’m exploring and improvising in music.

Since Effortless Mastery first got me hooked on reading, I’ve amassed a library with hundreds of books that I’ve found helpful. Here’s a short list of a few more books in a similar vein you should add to your reading list:

The Music Lesson

By Victor Wooten

This one is a little bit strange. Within the first few pages, Victor exclaims, “To my friends: This is the book you’ve been waiting for. It’s probably not what you expected but believe me, what you asked for is here. It’s up to you to find it.” A massively insightful read, despite being completely bizarre!

Body Mind Mastery

By Dan Millman

Another book in the line of personal and spiritual growth through developing an art form, it’s written from the perspective of an Olympic gymnast. This is an especially helpful read for anyone who holds too much body tension while playing. There’s even a list of stretches inside that I use daily.

CRASH! Course for Success: 5 Ways to Supercharge Your Personal and Professional Life

By Rich Redmond

In this book, Rich breaks down his “CRASH” acronym (Commitment, Relationships, Attitude, Skills, and Hunger) in-depth and describes how to use each of these in all areas of your life. Written by one of the hardest working drummers in the industry, his perspective is a must-read for any drummer looking to enhance their skills and mindset!

Mind Matters: Overcoming Common Mental Barriers In Drumming

By Bernie Schallen

This book includes exactly what the title suggests, but is the only book on the list written by a drummer for drummers. Goal setting, band dynamics, and motivation are some interesting topics discussed here.

If you want to learn more about “liberating the master musician within”, I’ll leave you with a lesson from Kenny Werner. I know it’s not drums, but I promise it’s worth your time!

BONUS: The Best Beginner Drum Book

By Jared Falk and Brandon Toews

If you’re looking for books every drummer should read, we had to shamelessly include ours. This book includes a 30-day pass to Drumeo Edge, and while it’s geared toward beginner drummers, it’s a great refresher on many concepts for experienced players and educators! You can pick up a copy right here.

*This article contains affiliate links, which means we might earn a small commission from the product seller if you make a purchase. For more info, check out our privacy page.

As someone whose job it is to explore the outskirts of rhythm theory, one of the things I hear the most is “Where am I ever going to use this?” There’s some validity to that question, but I feel this type of negative spin is counterproductive to pushing music forward as an art form. Some people seem to immediately dismiss anything that doesn’t automatically fit within their narrow framework of ‘acceptable’ music. It can even go as far as to offend people when something doesn’t seem to make sense, or when it takes too much effort to find the pattern within.

In his book Effortless Mastery, Kenny Werner says “Without preconceptions, you could handle and enjoy much more chaos in music.” Clinging to ideas of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ creates knee-jerk reactions to ‘wrongness.’ It’s fine to not like something, but keeping an open mind and searching for the beauty within the ‘wrongness’ yields rewards that are hard to exaggerate. Scattered rhythms eventually feel like amazing syncopations when you understand them deeply enough.

For me, exploring the unknown is utterly fascinating. It’s even more fascinating when I can’t immediately see where it’s usable. At that point, it starts to feel like a game! What kind of musical statement could I create with this? How can I phrase it so the listener hears this as I do? After all, notes are just notes. No matter how twisted or insane the rhythm is, there’s an underlying pulse that we can all relate to if you break something down far enough.

Here’s another insightful quote from Effortless Mastery:

“The visionary is often regarded as a heretic and the devil’s tool. Through the force of his will and his sincere need of more intensity in the music, the musical visionary has convinced us time and time again that these dissonances were the new right notes. The heresy of the 14th century became the conventional wisdom of the 15th century.

So the question is: if the notes sounded wrong and unusable in the 14th century, how did they become desirable in the 15th century? The answer is that they were never wrong! We just heard them that way. Hence, the truth: there are no wrong notes.”

I take this quote as encouragement for exploring the territory of the ‘wrong.’ After all, you can’t break new ground, or have any hope of finding “the new right notes” by staying exclusively within the territory of the known. I’m not suggesting that everybody needs to follow this path. For those who do – and experience negativity, resistance, or even ridicule over their ideas – know that art needs you. There will always be people who aren’t into it; just don’t let that stop you from exploring!

You may come up with ideas that, even after putting in hard work, end up still not sounding like much. That’s part of the game: you’ve got to dig through some dirt before you can strike gold!

At the end of his most recent book, Double Bass Drum Freedom, Virgil Donati puts it this way:

“For the integrity and progress of our art form, I feel that it is the performer’s absolute responsibility to play new music, to apply new ideas.

We must constantly renew our musical ideas. A lot of emphasis is placed today on being accessible, but in retrospect, all the interesting and great works of art have always been created in an uncompromisingly modern language. Some of this may come across as musical, or artistic arrogance, but I don’t feel that. It’s a creative necessity to move forward.

Don’t dilute your musical vision, be bold.”

Those words perfectly embody my most profound reasons for playing music in the first place. The things that have always made me light up inside have been when I’m stumbling upon something new. Even if it’s only new to me, that feeling of discovery is the creative fuel that gets me out of bed in the morning.

I hope this article inspires you to go to your instrument and explore things that are unfamiliar to you. There’s nothing like the feeling of breaking new ground. It’s addictive in the best possible way. You may even discover some new right notes along the way.

Sometimes there’ll be situations that require a unique configuration. There’s nothing that makes this ‘wrong’ as long as the drums are physically playable. Most importantly, if they’re comfortable for you, your decision is 100% right. One of the benefits of setting up in an ‘unconventional’ way is that it can inspire new ideas. Something you’d play on a standard kit can come out sounding completely different with an oddball setup!

Toms

First and floormost (see what I did there), everyone knows that floor toms go on the right and your toms descend in pitch clockwise. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Marco Minnemann breaking this rule. He had five toms and a gong drum (which is basically a bass drum-sized tom you play with sticks). From left to right, the sizes were 22, 10, 12, 8, 14, and 16.

The coolest thing about playing your toms out of order is that parts you’re used to playing on a standard setup come out differently on their own! When I first tried this, I quickly fell in love with how licks I already knew intimately would come out in new and surprising ways.

Lately, I’ve been using the same tom sizes but in a different order: 12, 8, 10, 14, 16. I enjoy having the 12” on the left, which simulates a left floor tom. It also comes with the added benefit of space for auxiliary snares to the left of my main snare. For a while, I was setting up symmetrically, similar to Mike Mangini. You can set up your toms in any order you like. You should experiment with different setups; maybe one will surprise you!

Hi-hats

The standard place for your hi-hats is to your left, where your right hand crosses over your left hand to play them. For straight stands, this makes a lot of sense as you’re fairly limited in where you can comfortably position your foot. Remote hi-hat stands open up the possibilities. You could have your left foot where it normally sits, but with the hi-hats all the way on the other side – over your floor toms, for example. Danny Carey placed his between the rack toms for an album or two. Going remote also makes it easy to add multiple pairs of hi-hats to your setup.

Auxiliary Snares

We typically see auxiliary snare drums off to the left, like a 10” or 12” to complement a 13” or 14” main snare drum. Firstly, you don’t need to just use one; I used to enjoy using three with a 10” and a 12” on the left of a 13” or 14” in the center.

Another cool option is going larger to the left. You could have a 12” or 13” main with a big, deep 14” off to your left tuned super low. And why stop at 14”? I‘ve got a 20×9 that sounds awesome with a massive, sample-like snare sound. The position is also open-ended; you can put snares to the right of center, up in rack tom positions or even above them, like Mangini’s Golden Ratio 10×6.2 snare (#MathNerd…I love it). One of my favorite snare maniacs is Chris Dave; he sometimes uses four on one kit!

Things to consider when setting up

You should still keep a few things in mind when setting up. The vast majority of music is kick and snare-centric. Those two instruments need to be in the most comfortable positions since you generally use them the most. Have your main snare between the knees and your bass drum where your right foot (or left if you’re a lefty, of course) sits naturally. I always assemble these elements first when building a new kit. The kick and snare need to feel like home, so get super comfortable with them before you do anything else.

Once you’ve chosen a tom setup, try to assemble it so each tom’s angle is similar to the angle of your snare. This is important because we learn the majority of our hand technique on the snare drum, so it makes the most sense to replicate those conditions as closely as possible throughout the drum set.

Next, plan the positions for your main riding surfaces. As I mentioned in the hi-hat section, those can go anywhere. I like to close my eyes and just air drum with my sticks. I’m not thinking about what it looks like – just exploring what would feel like a comfortable place for my hi-hats, and putting them there (as long as I can get the hardware to fit). I do the same for the ride cymbal and my main stack as well.

The above method will help you to position your most essential instruments where they’re comfortable and easily accessible. The placement of the rest of the cymbals, percussion, and anything else are entirely up to you and your creativity. Put whatever you want wherever you want it. Just make sure it’s somewhere that’s easy to hit!

*This article contains affiliate links, which means we might earn a small commission from the product seller if you make a purchase. For more info, check out our privacy page.

You launch into the fifth song of your set and things are going great. The crowd is pumped, you’ve already pulled off a handful of tricky sections successfully, but then the bridge hits. You’ve got a long section of haulin’ double bass ahead of you!

The first few bars go great, then all of a sudden your beat starts to sound lopsided. The left notes are getting quieter!

When you look down, you realize you’ve pushed your slave side of the double kick pedal a few inches further forward than you like it.

If it slides much further, the crossbar is going to start grinding into the bass drum hoop. Worse yet, the notes are getting progressively more difficult to execute and will soon be impossible. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it through the section and can then pull the pedal back to where it belongs. There’s always the danger that things can go worse, pulling the player out of time and possibly even train wrecking the song!

When this happens it can be a frustrating and sometimes humiliating situation to deal with. Thankfully, there are a number of great solutions to this problem!

Most pedals have little spikes stock from the factory. Unfortunately, they’re rarely strong enough to stay in position under heavy double bass playing. The zero-cost solution isn’t really a solution, but it can help in a pinch. You can strategically set up your crash stand so one of the feet sits snugly against the front of your slave pedal. This works best if the leg is pointing directly toward the pedal. If it’s on an angle, the cymbal stand will rotate away and your pedal will still creep! Any heavy object will do. A cinder block is another way to accomplish the same thing.

Beyond that, the least expensive way is to go to the hardware store and buy some industrial velcro strips. The great thing about these is that they’re really thin, so it’s easy to stick them to the underside of your pedal without really noticing them. You don’t need to cover the bottom fully, just under the front and maybe down the sides in an upside-down “U” shape. It should be noted that this only works if there’s a carpet.

Pro tip! Have a drum rug that lives with your live kit in case of emergencies.

There is a cool product if you’re not able to set up with a rug called “Kick Strap”. As the name suggests, it connects your kick pedal to your seat post with a heavy-duty strap. You can also use this for your hi-hat stand and adjust it to whatever length is right for you.

The solution that I use when I’m playing double pedal is what’s called a “pedal anchor”. It’s a large pair of heavy steel spikes which attach to the hoop clamp on the front of your slave pedal. Some double pedal slaves don’t come with this from the factory, so you’d need to order the hoop clamp as well for this to work. I’ve been using the Yamaha P80-SA for decades. They’re incredibly solid and work perfectly! That particular model is no longer in production, but you may get lucky on eBay. Pearl, Dixon, and a number of other companies make a similar product.

Any of the above methods should be able to help you avoid double bass disasters! If you want to get your MacGyver on, you could always try multi-clamping some dumbbells to a cymbal stand and positioning them in front of the slave pedal. You could try literally gaff taping your pedal to the ground. Better yet, you could commandeer the help of an eager fan to sit on stage and physically hold it in place for the most up-close-and-personal band experience!

*This article contains affiliate links, which means we might earn a small commission from the product seller if you make a purchase. For more info, check out our privacy page.

Here are 10 intermediate drum beats to help you get out of your beginner’s rut. Each one will use basic concepts that you might recognize from beginner grooves you’ve played before, but will have a little twist that you might’ve never encountered.

While you’re learning and practicing these beats, remember to start slow, stay relaxed, and know that repetition is key. Let’s jump right into it!

(Not sure if you’re ready to move from beginner drum beats to intermediate drumming? Check out the beginner’s test here. )

1. Flams

This first drum beat takes a basic rock beat and replaces the snare hits with flams. Since flams require both sticks to play, we’ll be coming off the hi-hat for each one. We’ll be playing right hand flams, so keep your left hand nice and close to the snare drum throughout the whole groove!

2. No kick on “1”

The biggest twist for this beat is we’ll be playing NO kick on count one. This might feel weird at first since the kick drum helps you find your spot and keeps you anchored.

3. Up-beat

The first thing to tackle with this beat is the kick drum pattern. We’ll be playing the kick drum on all four quarter notes with a fifth on the “and” of count four. Once you have that down, focus on adding the hi-hats next, and finally the snare hits. Work on each part individually before you add it all together.

4. One-handed 16ths

You’ve most likely experimented with two-handed sixteenth note beats, but today we’re going to try playing the hi-hat notes with one hand only. Start super slow with this! The biggest challenge is lining up the kick and snare hits evenly with your hi-hats. You don’t want any flams here.

5. Bossa nova

Here’s your very first latin beat! This specific pattern is called the “3-2 Clave”, meaning there are three notes in the first bar and two notes in the second bar. Your feet will be playing a repeated pattern (also called an ostinato) consisting of a hi-hat and two kick drums. Your right hand will be playing eighth notes on your ride cymbal, and your left hand will be playing a cross-stick on the snare drum. This is a tricky one, so watch the video above to get a demonstration.

(Click here if you’ve never played a Bossa Nova before)

6. The “kinda-diddle”

This is the first groove we’ll be covering that features ghost notes. Start by isolating the two hands and ignore the kick drum. Once you’re okay with that, slowly add in each kick drum.

7. Linear lick

“Linear” means that no two limbs are playing at the same time. This drum beat is similar to the previous one with a few minor changes. This pattern also makes a great intermediate drum fill.

8. 16th note shuffle

This is the only triplet-based groove we’ll be learning today. This one might look super complicated at first glance, but once you have the feel down, it’s not nearly as bad as you might think. If you’re confused by the sheet music, watch the video to get a good audible example of what it sounds like. Watch legends like Bernard Purdie play a shuffle to really nail the feel.

9. The Carter Beauford

Note that count four is played on the floor tom opposed to the snare drum. The biggest challenge in this beat is closing the hi-hat, hitting the floor tom, and hitting the ride cymbal all at the exact same time. This pattern has a Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band) vibe – hence the name!

10. Odd time

Everything we’ve played up until this point has been in 4/4 time, meaning four quarter notes per bar. This one is in 7/8, meaning there are seven eighth notes per bar. Confused? Start with 4/4 and take away one eighth note! If you’re new to odd time, check out this 8 minute lesson on odd time grooves.

Lesson Index:
0:49 – 1. Flams
7:27 – 2. No kick on “1”
13:13 – 3. Up-beat
18:32 – 4. One-handed sixteenths
25:06 – 5. Bossa nova
36:20 – 6. The “kindadiddle”
41:33 – 7. Linear
46:25 – 8. 16-note shuffle
51:32 – 9. The Carter Beauford
59:30 – 10. Odd time – 7/8

Ready for something more advanced? Check out this lesson on advanced drum patterns.