BN510

CD INCLUDED
Over 80 Tracks!
 ED
CD INCLUD
acks!
Over 80 Tr
BN510

Not just another book of beats and rolls, The Ultimate Guide To Rock Drums is the first
fully developed system that teaches you what you want and when you need it. This
system, based on years of teaching experience takes you from basic rock grooves right
up to heavy rock, punk and funky beats in a short amount of time.

All exercises are laid out in a logical fashion, building upon each other from chapter to
chapter. Learn how to read and understand drum notation in a way that is unique and
straight ahead. The Ultimate Guide To Rock Drums gives you the drumset skills you
need to go out and start rocking with a band TODAY!

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Published and Distributed by
MAYFAIR MUSIC PUBLICATIONS INC
26037 Woodbine Avenue, R.R. #2, Keswick, Ontario Canada L4P 3E9
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The Ultimate Guide to Rock Drums
by Neal Busby and Brad McNeice

Congratulations! You have just purchased the most complete and straight forward guide to rock drum-
ming on the market today!

Neal and Brad are two of Canadas busiest drum teachers because they offer one thing that many other
teachers don’t... RESULTS! The material in this book is easy to learn, and organized so there is a natu-
ral progression from start to finish. This means that you not only get results... but you get them FAST!

Visit www.theultimateguidetorockdrums.com to get news on future publications, and access to all

kinds of free media!!!

But enough chit chat... LET’S GET ROCKIN’

© Copyright 2009 Neal Busby and Brad McNeice

Published and distributed by Mayfair Montgomery Publishing Markham Ontario Canada L3R 3W3
www.mayfairmusicdealer.com

RESPECT COPYRIGHT
No part of this publication may be reproduced, arranged, stored or digitized in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means
including electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise without written permission of the respected authors and composers.
Table of Contents

Introduction 1-3

Chapter 1
• Eighth Note Rock 4-11
• Eighth and Sixteenth Fills 12-25
• Eighth Note Rock With Sixteenth Snares 26-31
• Eighth Note Rock with Sixteenth Kicks 32-35
• Eighth Note Rock With Sixteenth Kick and Snares 36-37
• The Big Four 38-39
• Eighth Note Rock On The Floor Tom 40-41
• Three, Three, Two 42-43
• Flams 44-46
• Eighth Note Rock With Open Hats 47-48

Chapter 2
• Sixteenth Note Slow Rock 49-56
• Sixteenth And Thirty-Second Note Fills 57-59

Chapter 3
• Sixteenth Note fast Rock 60-70
• Broken Sixteenth Fills 71-75

Chapter 4
• Quarter Note Fast Rock 76-88
• Fast Rock Fills 89-91

Chapter 5
• Triplet Rock 92-94
• Shuffle Rock 95-99
• Shuffle Fast Rock 100-104
• Triplet Fills 105-107
Introduction
Reading Notation
This picture of a standard five piece drum set clarifies the names of the drums in your set and shows
you what they look like when they’re written in music.

Hi-hat Crash Tom 1 Snare Kick Tom 2 Tom 3 Ride

Below is this books notation legend. It is a good idea to memorize this legend and all of the drum
names by quizzing yourself. Your confidence in knowing which note is which will allow you to prog-
ress through the book quickly.

1
Introduction
Understanding Time
Most rock music is written in 4/4 time. This means that when you count a bar of music you count
“One, Two, Three, Four” and then repeat. The exercises below represent the common elements of 4/4
rock.

This bar is an example of quarter notes played on the hi-hat. A quarter note can be identified as a note
with a stem. This note should be played on the hi-hat with your right hand and counted out loud “One,
Two, Three, Four”.
R R R R

1 2 3 4

The next bar is an example of eighth notes played on the hi-hat. Eighth notes are simply a sub-divided
quarter note. This means that two eighth notes take up the same amount of space as one quarter note.
You can identify an eighth note as a note with a stem and one connecting line on the top called a tail.
This bar is to be played on the hi-hat with your right hand and counted out loud “One, and, Two, and,
Three, and, Four, and”

R R R R R R R R

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

The final bar is an example of sixteenth notes played on the hi-hat. A sixteenth note is a subdivided
eighth note. This means that two sixteenth notes take up the same amount of space as one eighth note
and four sixteenth notes take up the same amount of space as one quarter note. You can identify a six-
teenth note as a note with a stem and two tails. This bar is to be played on your hi-hat with your right
hand and counted out loud “One, E, and, A, Two, E, and, A, Three, E, and, A, Four, E, and, A”

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

1 E +A2 E +A3 E +A4 E +A

There are a few more possibilities that we will address later on the book.

2
Introduction
Building a Beat
Enough of the technical stuff. Now that we’ve learned notation and counting, lets build a beat and start
rocking!

The First bar is a classic example of a back beat pattern on the kick and snare. Count out loud as we
place the kick drum on the “one” and “Three” and the snare drum one the “Two” and “Four”. It’s im-
portant to play slowly at first and make sure your timing is solid.

L L

CD Track 1
1 2 3 4

Bar two is the same rhythm between the kick and snare as bar one, but now we will add a quarter note
hi-hat. Make sure that our hi-hat is landing directly on top of the kick and snare so the beat sounds
tight.
R R R R
L L

CD Track 2
1 2 3 4

The final bar is the same kick and snare pattern as the previous two exercises. This time we’ll play
eighth notes on our hi-hat.

R R R R R R R R
L L

CD Track 3
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Starting to sound like something? This is where it all begins!

3
Chapter 1
Eighth Note Rock
Eighth Note Rock

The following page represents eight common placements of kick drum rhythms across a bar of eighth
notes. You probably recognize these beats from many popular rock songs from classic to modern.
Although the beats in this chapter are written as hats, kick and snare, you can easily move your right
hand to your crash, ride or floor tom. This will dramatically change the overall sound of every beat in
this chapter, leaving you with many more possibilities.

4
Eighth Note Rock

1.

CD Track 4

2.

3.

4.

CD Track 5

5.

6.

7.

8.

5
Eighth Note Rock
With Double Snares
To the previous beats, we can now add some extra snare hits to increase our beat vocabulary. These
double snare beats are typical of 50’s pop rock and surf rock music.

6
Eighth Note Rock
With Double Snares

1.

2.

CD Track 6

3.

4.

CD Track 7

5.

6.

7.

8.

7
Eighth Note Rock
Four on the Floor
If you want to make people dance, the best way to get them to do it is playing FOUR ON THE
FLOOR! Placing a kick drum on every quarter note creates a constant rhythm that is very easy to
move to.

Keeping the quarter note steady on all four beats we can examine the eighth note possibilities on our
snare drum. This will include using combinations of double snares and for the first time in this book,
the use of “Off” beats.

The “Off” beats in these patterns will be any snare that lands in between the quarter note bass drum.

8
Eighth Note Rock
Four on the Floor

1.

CD Track 8

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

CD Track 9

8.