Author: Ray Rojo

Double Bass Drum Development

The focus of this lesson is to teach you several exercises that will help you develop basic control over the double pedal. The examples revolve around switching back and forth between 8th notes and 8th note triplets with the feet, over a very simple hand pattern to help us develop speed, control, and better balance […]

Practice Pad Creativity

The focus of this lesson is to teach you how we can use some of the basic concepts that the 40 essential rudiments revolve around to create our own patterns on the practice pad. This will help us keep ourselves more entertained than if we played the same rudiments over and over, and we will […]

Intro to the double paradiddle

This lesson is an introduction to one of the 40 essential rudiments, the double paradiddle. We are going to learn what the double paradiddle is, a couple of orchestrations that can be applied around the kit, and a couple of ways that we can use it to play grooves. For this lesson I will assume […]

Basic Hi-Hat Variations

In this lesson I will teach you what I consider to be the 4 most common hi hat variations that we need to be able to play as drummers. I will first demonstrate these variations over a very simple groove, and then demonstrate them over a more complex idea to inspire you to practice these […]

Double Stroke Roll Study

In this lesson we are going to learn how we can use different note values to practice and develop our technique, and timing, using the double stroke roll. In time, this will help us develop a cleaner and faster double stroke roll.  For this lesson, I?m going to assume that you already know what the […]

Paradiddle Study – Dotted 8th Notes Pt. 2

This is lesson 2 from a series focused on playing dotted 8th note ideas over the single paradiddle played as 16th notes. In this particular lesson we will continue to focus on playing the paradiddle with the hands, but we will develop more complex ideas using dotted 8th notes with our feet to improve our […]

Paradiddle Study – Dotted 8th Notes Pt. 1

This is lesson 1 from a series focused on playing dotted 8th note ideas over the single paradiddle played as 16th notes. In this particular lesson we will focus on playing the paradiddle with the hands, and we will introduce dotted 8th note patterns with the feet to get used to this concept. This will […]

Implied Metric Modulation Pt. 3

In this lesson we are going to incorporate the double bass to enhance the illusion of a metric modulation that we learned to create in the previous two lessons of this series. It isn?t necessarily a new concept of the implied metric modulation idea we?ve been working with, it?s simply a fun musical application of […]

Implied Metric Modulation Pt. 2

This is lesson number 2 in a series that is all about learning how to use implied metric modulation behind the kit. In this lesson we are going to dig a lot deeper into how we can use dotted 8th notes, or the polyrhythm of 4:3 to create more musical and much cooler sounding implied […]

Implied Metric Modulation Pt. 1

This lesson is part one of a series of lessons that are going to be focused on explaining and exploring the topic of implied metric modulation. In this lesson we are going to use the rhythm created by consecutive dotted 8th notes as our introduction. We will develop this idea behind the kit as grooves, […]

Paradiddle Combination

In this lesson we are going to combine the single paradiddle, and the first inversion of the single paradiddle to create a very fun, musical, and useful pattern. I will demonstrate the full pattern, and I will teach you several ways in which this combination can be useful for us as drummers.

The Dilddle Turn-Around

Today?s lesson is a technique exercise that I call ?the diddle turn-around?. The purpose of this exercise is to help us feel more comfortable moving around the kit, regardless of us having an 8 piece, or a 3 piece kit.

Intro to 16th note Grooves Part 2

This lesson is part 2 of the series titled ?intro to 16th note grooves?, with emphasis on our snare drum. In this lesson we will continue the work we did on part one of this series, and we will explore more groove variations playing the snare on the ?e? and the ?a? of each beat. […]

Intro to 16th note Grooves

This lesson is an introduction to learning how to play 16th notes with the snare drum to create more interesting sounding grooves. I will explain what 16th notes are, how they relate to 8th notes, and I will demonstrate several simple yet effective 16th note grooves for you to learn.

3s and a Diddle

Today?s lesson is focused on hand technique, and it is all about developing our ability to play 3 consecutive strokes with each hand. This is something that is very simple to understand, but very difficult to actually develop and feel comfortable in practice. So, in this lesson I will teach you a simple 2 bar […]

Bass Drum Placement – Shuffle Part 1

Correctly playing and subdividing 8th note triplets is a very challenging task, especially with the bass drum. As challenging as it may be, it is essential that we are comfortable with this concept in order to play many different styles of music. In this lesson we will focus on being able to comfortably play 8th […]

Double Stroke Roll – Drum Set Application

Today?s lesson is all about the double stroke roll. I will teach you a very simple but very fun and challenging way to apply the double stroke roll to the drum set. We will use different note values to help us improve our hand technique, help us improve our subdivisions, and our bass drum technique […]

Artificial Groupings – A Bass Drum Workout

In this lesson we will be focusing on improving our bass drum technique. I will teach you a creative way to use artificial groupings with the bass drum to create a series of exercises that will keep you entertained and focused while you isolate your bass drum. This lesson is in the advanced section of […]

Hi-Hat Control Part 2 – Shuffle

Today?s lesson is a follow up of the lesson ?hi hat control Part 1?, in which we explored the most common rhythms that we play with our hi hat foot when we?re playing 8th note or 16th note grooves. In this lesson we will expand this idea to shuffles and learn some of the most […]

The Paradiddle 16th to Triplet Conundrum

In this lesson I will teach you how we can use the single paradiddle to strengthen our sense of time and our subdivision over a quarter note pulse. To do this, we are going to play the paradiddle as 16th notes and as 8th note triplets both as a technique exercise on the snare, and […]

Groups of 5 Inside 3 Over 4

In today?s lesson we are going to be superimposing a grouping of 5 eight note triplets inside the polyrhythm of 3:4 to create a groove. I will walk you through the process that I followed to create this complex and yet musical groove, and teach you all the steps that will help you gain full […]

Basic Displacement

As I?m sure you already know, probably the most important thing we need to have as drummers is good time, a good, consistent sense of time. In order to work on this I like to work on displacement exercises that help me focus more on the original pulse, while making practice much more entertaining and […]

Your First Drum Lesson – Groove Variations

This lesson titled ?your first drum lesson, groove variations? is the direct follow up of the lesson titled ?your first drum lesson?. In this lesson I will expand on the ideas that were taught in the previous lesson to help you create several groove variations that will lead us to play a new note value, […]

Your First Drum Lesson

This lesson titled ?your first drum lesson? is exactly that, a lesson geared toward people who want to play the drums and have never had the chance to take a lesson. In this lesson I will teach you how to play one simple groove using three limbs, I will break down a counting system that […]

The Pyramid of Pain

In this lesson I will teach you one of my all time favorite technique concepts. The pyramid is a very entertaining way to push our limits physically, while remaining focused and engaged mentally. This concept can be applied with any rudiment, note value and idea, which will give you the freedom to use your favorite […]

Intro to Groups of 3

The goal for this lesson is to give you a short introduction to using groups of three 16th notes on the drum set. First I will teach you what I mean when we talk about groups of three, and then I will give you a couple of applications that can be used on the kit […]

Fill Development Series Part 1

In this series I will share with you several steps that I like to follow to turn a rhythmic idea into many different fills. Throughout the series I will explain several sticking and rudiment ideas over the same rhythmic pattern, different ways of exploring the same idea around the kit, and how to incorporate cymbals […]

Bass Drum Placement Part 3

This lesson is part three of a series of lessons that focus on our bass drum placement. In this lesson we will talk about all of the possibilities available to us when thinking of sets of three 16th notes per beat in 4/4, as well as the only possibility with four 16th notes per beat.

Bass Drum Placement Part 2

This lesson is part two of a series of lessons that focus on our bass drum placement. In this lesson we will talk about all of the possibilities available to us when thinking of sets of two 16th notes per beat in 4/4.

Bass Drum Placement Part 1

This is lesson one of a series in which I will teach you two different ways of practicing and developing a good placement of 16th notes with the bass drum. In this lesson, we will go through all of the possibilities of one 16th note per beat, focusing on unisons with the hands, and in […]

Hi-Hat Control Part 1

In this lesson I will teach you what I consider to be the three most basic, and yet most important foot hi-hat patterns that we need to know as drummers. I will demonstrate several steps that we can follow to familiarize ourselves with the three patterns, and how we can apply them into grooves to […]

Keeping a “4” Over 7

In today?s lesson I will teach you how we can use? a strong quarter note pulse over odd time signatures to help our grooves be a little more listener friendly and easy to follow. I will demonstrate this in the time signature of? 7/8 using different grooves so you can understand how to use this […]

Explaining Time Signatures

In this lesson I will teach you the meaning of time signatures in music, how time signatures work, and how we use them to better explain and understand the meaning of pulse in a musical context.?

Two-Handed Hi-Hat Grooves

In this lesson we are going to talk about two handed sixteenth note grooves on the drum set. I will teach you the basic mechanics of this idea, and give you a couple of different ways you can get creative with two handed 16th notes on the hat and the snare to come up with […]