Free Drum Lessons on the Web

Drum lessons are available all over the Internet but, all too often, the prices are high and the quality is low. Whether you're a beginner, intermediate, or advanced player, improve your technique with quality drum lessons at the right price: Free! Enjoy these links to free drum lessons that include studies for all major percussion instruments, including: Vibes and Marimba, Timpani, concert and military Snare Drum, Drumset, and much more.

Tiger Bill's Free Online Drum Lessons
Learn how to improve your hand and foot chops, increase your four-way coordination, learn Buddy Rich's secret techniques, and much more in a continuing series of free drum lesson articles by Tiger Bill Meligari.

Tiger Bill's Free Video Drum Lessons
Improve your hand and foot chops with the Tension-Free Techniques made famous by Tiger Bill in a series of continuing monthly lessons, exclusively for the DRUM! Magazine Web site.

1234Drums!
Check out this new site from the UK, specializing in Free Online Drum Lessons.

African Dance Drumming
Here's a basic introduction to African Dance Drumming, including descriptions of the drums and percussion instruments used.

American Drum School
Here's some online lessons for beginners, complements of Dave "Bedrock" Bedrosian. Included are hand exercises, rudiments, and basic rock beats for the drum set. Also, advice on tuning and setting up your drums, and practicing.

Bongo
Learn a basic bongo rhythm pattern, the Martillo, on this site compliments of Trevor Salloum, author of The Bongo Book.

Drum Lessons Database
Drum Bum features hundreds of external links to free drum lessons on the Web, organized by topic.

Drum Tab Lessons and More
Click the above link and scroll down the page until you get to the DRUM section. You'll find over a dozen lessons including the 3-part How To Read/Write Drum Tabs.

Doumbek Rhythms:
A Quick and Dirty Guide
For beginners, this includes an intro to the Doumbek, basic strokes, and a basic rhythm. By Mas'ud al-Sha'ir, ourtesy of blackroot.org.

Drum Circle – Getting Started
Guide for newbies to the world of drumming and the drum circle. Reach out and touch someone, through drumming.

Mallet Lessons
Studies for vibes but adaptable to marimba and xylophone as well, from James Walker. Lessons include mallet selection, stickings, 4-mallet exercises, chord voicings, classical and jazz techniques, solos, vibe pedaling, jazz theory, and more. Check it out.

Musical Terms Glossary
If you think Adagio, Allegro, and Andante are three Italian pastries, then you need this site. Learn as many of these terms as you can. They'll come in handy when you're reading music. Courtesy of The Classical Music Web site at hnh.com.

Polyrhythm Page
An introduction to Polyrhythms, with some exercises that range in difficulty from intermediate to advanced. From Marc Zoutendijk's site.

Polyrhythms - Five Against Four
How's your coordination? Here are some exercises for advanced drum set players, compliments of billraydrums.com.

Rudiments
Here's a chart of the Standard 26 American Drum Rudiments along with 14 more than make up the official 40 PAS Drum Rudiments.

Steel Drums
Click this link for some basic info on the Steel Drum and the above link for a cool, interactive Steel Drum Lesson where you can practice your lesson with a virtual steel online drum.

Taiko Resource
The Rolling Thunder Taiko Resource presents this online tutorial on the rhythm of Kitakami Sansa-daiko. Audio is available to enhance your experience.

Tambourine (Riq)
Here are a couple of lessons on the Riq (Egyptian Tambourine) by Randy Gloss of Hands On'Semble, a contemporary percussion quartet.

Timpani Solos and Exercises
Timpani solos and exercises written by Marc Zoutendijk. Challenging for the intermediate timpanist

Virtual Drum Studio
Mike Synder's site contains a good collection of exercises for building your coordination on the drum set. Including a real nice Jazz Samba, some swing independence exercises, and an intro to "Linear Drumming."

 

Do You Wish You Had Monster Chops?
Free drum lessons can only take you so far, to get to the next level you need custom drum lessons. Check out Tiger Bill's Custom Internet Drum Lessons and learn the secrets to building your own Monster Chops.