If you don’t play the drums, it can be hard to understand what’s going on when listening to a drum part, beyond just ‘drum, drum, cymbal’! We’ve created a new quiz here at EasyEarTraining.com to help you get to grips with the subtleties of the kit.

The quiz takes the same form as our ‘Intro To Ear Training’ Quiz: Ten multiple-choice questions based on sound clips you’ll hear. You can take the questions at your own pace, and listen several times until you’re happy with your answer. At the end you’ll get told your score and given feedback on each question, with hints on how to improve. You can tweet your score or share it on Facebook if you want to tell friends how you did.

If you have some drumming experience, go ahead and take the quiz and let us know how you get on. You may be surprised by your score!

If the topic’s new to you, make sure you read ‘A Roll Around The Drum Kit’ and spend a bit of time with the MP3s from that article before you dive into the quiz.

As always – any questions, give a shout in the Forums or in the comments below.


Enjoy!

Welcome back to the continuation of the frequency training series. For the next 5 articles, we will expand, break down and analyze this topic in much greater detail. For those who are just now joining us, let me say just one thing:

Stop! Do NOT read any further!

As a matter of fact, go back and first read the introduction overview to frequency training. You’ll need the background information! Trust me, it’s not filler, and will save you much unneeded frustration! Go on…we’ll wait.

From this point on I’ll assume we are all caught up. (The beauty being, you can always go back and re-read and review….remember, no one is chasing you here. Work slowly, at your own pace. I’ll probably repeat that at some point in this series, so I ask your forgiveness and understanding ahead of time!)

Last time we left off with an overview of the nature of sound, and more specifically, the way it is measured (frequency, measured in Hertz, or Hz). Along with this, were some “must know” basic frequencies with exercises for recognizing and identifying them.

Reference frequencies

Briefly now, let’s take one tiny step back. (I think now is good time to revisit this.)
I always have, and still do recommend that you find whatever reference frequencies you are comfortable using as the anchor to your training….BUT…. Click to read the rest…

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…