A great drum groove is the foundation of popular music, but a surprising number of music lovers can’t tell a snare from a hi-hat. There are a number of articles coming up here on EasyEarTraining.com featuring drums so now seems as good a time as any to take a quick tour around the kit.

Being able to identify parts of a drum kit doesn’t just improve your appreciation of music, it’s also a great skill to have at your disposal when songwriting, allowing you to explain your ideas to your drummer or program a groove into a drum machine with something better than trial and error.

Hopefully by the end of this article you should be able to name all the common parts of a drum kit by sight and by sound.

Lets start by taking a look around a typical rock kit:

A Typical Rock Drumkit

1. Hi-Hat
2. Ride
3. Crash
4. Splash
5. China
6. Snare
7. Bass Drum
8. Tom Tom

It may look pretty complicated, but we can soon break it down.
Click to read the rest…

Greetings Ear Trainers! My name is Nick and I am a musician and broadcast engineer.

My personal musical odyssey began at 14 when I started playing the guitar. It wasn’t long before a hobby became an obsession and I joined the first of a succession of bands. For me collaborating with other musicians and playing for an audience is what music is all about. Over the years I’ve played Indie, Soul, Country, Heavy Metal, Punk, Post Rock and everything in between.

I love the challenge of mastering new instruments. Along with guitar I play bass, mandolin and even dedicated some years to playing the drums which will be the focus of my first sequence of articles. At the moment my main musical outlet is playing bass in my band Dark Energy (www.darkenergyband.com)

I’ve been involved with radio since university and spent much of my career working for the BBC designing and building studio and production systems.
Though I’m a qualified broadcast engineer I haven’t had a formal musical education. I’m not the kind of person who is interested in theory for theory’s sake, but as a self taught working musician I’ve found time and time again that I hit a wall that can be overcome with theory and ear training.

In my articles I hope to provide tips and advice aimed at the self taught gigging, or recording musician. Ear training has helped me to transcribe and learn music faster, sing backing vocals at gigs with bad monitoring, and produce better sounding demos and I hope it can help you to do the same!

Can’t remember the bass riff from your favorite tune or just want to write down a sweet drum beat playing in your head? Figure out complex rhythms in a snap with Apple’s Garageband. A user-friendly music software program included with every Mac, Garageband allows any music enthusiast to mix beats, record, and produce original music. You can use this simple software to work on basic ear training skills involving rhythm, pitch, melody, and harmony.

Garageband’s simple interface includes tracks for audio and MIDI, a score, basic playback controls, options for effects, a sound library, and even a virtual music keyboard you can toggle on and off again using key commands. Export music from Garageband directly into iTunes.

GarageBand User Interface

Follow these simple steps to develop your rhythm skills in GarageBand.

1. Open a New Project

   The default tempo is 120 bpm (beats per minute) and the time signature is 4/4 (or four beats per measure). You can change the project name, tempo, time signature, and key when creating a new project:

   

   Opening a new GarageBand project





2. Set Up

   GarageBand sets up a default MIDI software instrument. If you do not own a MIDI controller, select Musical Typing from the Window Menu to use your computer keyboard as the input. To change the instrument, select a track and change the instrument name under the software instrument library. Check metronome settings under the Control Menu.

   

   Use your computer keyboard to play music





3. Recording

   Hit the red Record button and begin playing the rhythm. Use the metronome as your guide. Newer versions of GarageBand allow you to record multiple takes. When you have the take you like, view the rhythms either as MIDI data or as notated music using the toggle options in the Edit Window:

   

   View your music using traditional rhythm notation

   First take of recording a rhythm





4. Tweaking

   GarageBand has advanced options to fix any mistakes made in recording. In the Edit Window, you can decide how to quantize (”fix”) your rhythm. GarageBand even has Swing options. Not sure how to enhance timing? Selecting 1/16 Note from the drop-down menu usually addresses any minor rhythmic mistakes.

   

   Use GarageBand's automatic 'quantizing' to fix small mistakes easily

   Rhythm quantized (and instrument changed)





5. Application

   You can work with GarageBand to figure out basic to complex rhythms. Record while listening to your favorite drum fills to figure out crazy syncopations, print out the notated rhythm to hand out to your band, export the track to iTunes to work on ear training skills in your car, or use these rhythms to create new music.

   Final mix, using this rhythm

Practice recording different beats that you hear each day. The more you practice with GarageBand, the easier it will be to recognize rhythmic figures. You can use GarageBand to work on other ear training skills like melody, pitch, and harmony once you become comfortable with the software.

Struggling with understanding a rhythm, or have GarageBand tips to share? Leave a comment below!


See also: Get Your Groove On: Beat Basics