skills/instrument-ranges-and-idioms/references/drums.md

# Drum kit

## Voices and limbs

| Voice | Limb | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| kick | right foot | can play with any hand voice |
| hihat-pedal | left foot | closes the hi-hat; conflicts with hand hi-hat only if written on the same beat as an open hi-hat |
| hihat-closed, hihat-open | one hand | the timekeeping hand |
| ride, ride-bell | one hand | alternative timekeeping; not together with hand hi-hat |
| snare, side-stick | the other hand | backbeat, ghost notes; side-stick for quiet grooves |
| tom-high, tom-mid, tom-low | either hand | fills; each tom hit takes a hand |
| crash | either hand | accents on downbeats, fill endings |

Maximum on one beat: kick, hi-hat pedal, and two hand voices. Never three hand
voices (for example ride plus closed hi-hat plus snare together).

## Groove construction

1. Timekeeping: hi-hat or ride in eighths (or quarters for slow tempi,
   sixteenths for funk and hip-hop under 100 BPM).
2. Backbeat: snare on 2 and 4 (rock, pop, funk), or cross-stick for ballads.
   Jazz: ride plays the swing pattern, hi-hat pedal on 2 and 4, snare sparse
   comping.
3. Kick: 1 and 3 plus one syncopated hit per bar (the "and" of 3, or the
   sixteenth before 3). Keep the same kick pattern for 2 to 4 bars.
4. Colour: open hi-hat on the "and" of 4 once per 2 bars, ghost snare on a
   sixteenth before 2 or 4, crash on beat 1 of a section.
5. Fill: last bar of a 4- or 8-bar phrase, beats 3 and 4 or the whole bar,
   descending toms (high, mid, low) in eighths or sixteenths, ending with
   crash plus kick on the next downbeat.

## Speed

- One hand plays sixteenths comfortably up to about 110 BPM; above that,
  sixteenths alternate hands, so the snare cannot also play on those
  sixteenths.
- Fast kick doubles (two sixteenths) are fine; a bar of continuous kick
  sixteenths is metal double-bass writing, use only when asked.

## Avoid

- Every bar different.
- Crash on every downbeat.
- Snare and hi-hat both in sixteenths.
- A fill in every bar.