Accenting Rim Shots | Drum Lessons
In this video lesson, we’re gonna take a look at accented notes. First, we’ll explain what they are then we’ll show how you can play them using rim shots. And then, we’ll work through some simple examples to implement them in your kit. Now, if you’ve already watched the video lesson on ghost notes, you can think of accented notes as the opposite effect. Here, you wanna play the notes louder than normal to break things up. So we use a method known as rim shots to achieve this louder sound. Basically, you wanna have the stick come in contact with the rim as you strike the center of the snare drum. This can take a little time to master but I think you’ll be surprised at how fast you can begin to play this consistently. Let me demonstrate this for you now. I’ll alternate between rim shots and regular snare drum shots. Take some time to develop the stroke with both hands individually. Once you have that down, let’s move to the exercises on the provided sheet music. Here you can see that all five patterns include 16th note played on the snare drum. Now some of the notes have a little symbol above them. If you see my lessons on drum notation, you’ll know that this indicate accented notes. The important thing to notice here is that aside from certain notes being accented, these patterns are all identical. They are all made up of alternating 16th notes played on the snare. However, because of the accented notes, they’re played quite differently. Let me demonstrate the first example, accenting every second stroke of the lead hand. I’ll play through it four times at a hundred beats per minute. Now it’s important that you focus on playing all non-accented notes at a normal volume. This will ensure there is a significant dynamic difference when accented rim shots are played. And that is really what we’re trying to achieve here. Okay, the second example has accents on every second note played by the alternate hand. Note how the accents are simply shifted down one 16th note position. I’ll demonstrate this for you now repeating it four times at a hundred beats per minute. The third example is similar to the first and that all accents are played with the lead hand. However, you shift them to the end counts of the 16th notes. Remember as I’ve taught in the earlier lessons to count out loud as you practice new patterns. This will help you get a hold of these accents much faster. I’ll demonstrate example three for you now. Okay, example four accents the odd count of the 16th notes with the other hand. The concept should be pretty straight forward by now but this may still give you some trouble. Depending on your level of drumming experience, this maybe a little tricky, just take your time and work through this pattern slowly. I’ll demonstrate it for you now. Finally, we’ll move on to example five. Here, the pattern breaks up a little as you’ll actually be playing accented notes with both hands. The pattern has a bit of a triplet note fill to it but you’ll notice that the alternating accents break up in the third group of 16th notes. Read through this one carefully as it can be a little bit tricky. I’ll demonstrate it now. Now, after you’ve successfully mastered these patterns in a snare drum, you can move them around the kit in the variety of ways. For example, you can play the accent on the toms or on the high huts with the bass drum, also on the crash cymbals. Be sure you start out by mastering this on a snare drum. And then you can take them to your kit. I’m certain you’ll enjoy the new possibilities that accents provide.