Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson five of the Songs For A Better World unit.

My name is Mr. Chapman, and in today's lesson, we're going to be exploring the importance of the drum kits in the band.

We are going to be looking at different drumbeats, how to play the drums, and also have a go at making our own drumbeats on BandLab.

So without further ado, let's take a look at what we need to be successful in today's lesson.

In this lesson, you need a piece of paper, and a pencil to make notes with.

You'll also need your voice, or instrument, or access to an online app, or instrument, or digital audio workstation, such as BandLab.

This lesson is best with headphones, but it's not required.

If you need to pause the video to get any of the equipment you see on screen or find a quiet space to work in, please do so now, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Using music software.

You can create music using audio-mixing software.

The demonstrations in this lesson use a free programme called BandLab.

BandLab is for use by over thirteens only.

And if you are over 13, you still need permission to use it from your parent or carer.

Do now: what style is each drumbeat from? Match the drumbeats, one, two, three, and four, with the genres on the right.

We have jazz, hip hop, rock and EDM.

Here is drumbeat number one.

Drumbeats number two.

Drumbeat number three.

And finally, drumbeat number four.

So, match each drumbeat to the style on the right-hand side, pause the video now, and click resume when you're ready to continue.

How influential is the drumbeat to a song? A drumbeat or pattern, along with other musical features, can help a listener to identify the genre of the song.

What happens if you play the chords from "Imagine" over different drumbeats? Well, let's hear it over the EDM type of beat.

Whilst you listen, answer the question, how does the drumbeat change the effect of the music? And how about for a jazz beat? On screen now are some pictures of a drum kit.

The picture on the left is what an audience might see at a live event, and the picture on the right is what a drummer might see, sat behind the kit.

Can you name any of the drums or cymbals that you see? Sounds of the kit.

On screen is a very basic diagram of a drum kit.

Let's work through from left to right, to hear the different sounds of the kit, and then we can do a small test afterwards and hear what they sound like altogether.

So, first, we have the crash cymbal, and the crash cymbal sounds like this.

The hi-hat can be open or closed.

Usually it is closed, and will sound like this.

And when it is open, it sounds like this.

The snare drum sounds like this.

The snatch drum is usually played on beats two and four.

Next up, we have the tom drums. The tom drums are often arranged into a high tom, a mid tom, and a low or floor tom, and they sound something like this.

Hopefully you can hear that the pitch is changing.

The high tom is the smallest of the three, and the floor tom would be the biggest of the three.

The kick drum is the largest and lowest in pitch of all of the kit, and will sound like this.

This is played using a drummer's, usually, right foot, if they're right-handed.

Finally, we have the ride cymbal, which sounds like this.

You can hear that it has a less abrasive sound to the crash cymbal, and it's played in more gentle genres such as jazz.

So, let's do a quick test.

Which drum is this? Yes, that's the snare drum.

Which cymbal is this? Yes, that's the crash cymbal.

It does sound a bit like a crash, doesn't it? How about this drum? Yes, the kick drum.

And out of the different toms, would this be a low, a high or a mid tom? That's a hard question, but it is the high tom.

Compare it to the floor tom.

I have played all of those sounds on a digital audio workstation.

So, I'm not really playing a drum kit right now, I'm using a keyboard.

If you would like to, you can head over to BandLab and open up a drum kit, and experiment with where those sounds are on the keyboard.

With enough practise, you can become an expert keyboard or drummer, which is not what I am, but you could get a drumbeat that sounds something like this.

I'm just playing three notes, a kick, snare, and a hi-hat, and that is usually C, D, and F-sharp.

So, if you would like to have a go, we are going to be making our drumbeats very, very shortly anyway, but if you want to get ahead, then you may do so at this stage in the lesson.

And so, here I am over on BandLab, and I'm going to show you two ways that we can explore the sounds of the kit on BandLab.

So, once you're in your mix editor, you can click on Add Track.

You can either click on Drum Machine or Instruments, and I'm going to click on Instruments first and show you that one.

So, where it says piano, we can select the drop-down menu and go to drum kits, and then we get a classic rock kit open by default.

If you want to change it, you can do so there, I'm just going to keep it on the same thing.

If you do have a keyboard at home that plugs into the laptop, you can plug it in and select it as a media device there.

At the moment, I do not have that option, because I don't have a keyboard plugged into this laptop.

So, instead, it's defaulted to showing me the drum kit with different letters on, and they correspond to my laptop typing keyboard.

So if I press S on the typing keyboard, I get the kick sound.

If I press F, I get the snare sound.

Like so, and if I wanted to record that in, I could just press the record button, it would give me a countdown.

And press Space, and that will save into my project.

Now, the other way we can do it is by clicking on Add Track, Drum Machine, and then we get, by default, the 808 kit, but you can, again, choose whichever kit you want.

And, similarly, it's mapped the different sounds of the keyboard to the different sounds of the drum.

And it's the same letter.

So, S is still the kick and F it's still the snare drum.

However, this time you use the grid to input the different notes, like so.

And once you have the beat that you desire, you can click Add to Project, and you can drag it in like that and play it.

Like that.

There we go, so, there are three ways that you can use BandLab to create drum sounds.

So, please feel free to do that now, and spend anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes, experimenting, playing different drumbeats, and putting them into your projects.

Good luck, have fun, and press play when you're ready to move on with the lesson.

Drum kits in BandLab.

Find all the parts of a drum kit in BandLab, and on paper, write them in order of pitch, high to low.

Pause the video to complete your task, and click resume once you're finished.

I have headed over to an online drum machine.

If you would like to find an online drum machine, then you can ask your parents to help you do that.

This is the exact same layout as on BandLab, but I know that not everybody has access to BandLab.

It works in the same way.

So, if you're using BandLab, you can still benefit from this tutorial.

So, what I tend to do is do my hi-hats first, and I put my closed hi-hats on every other square.

And I also get into the habit of playing my beats, so I can hear it and hear if it's correct.

So, this is what I have so far.

And then I put a kick on one.

Let's see how that sounds.

I like it.

I'm going to go for a hip hop vibe.

So, my 10, actually, should be an 11, there, and my 12 should be a 13.

And I would like an open hi-hat on that last beat instead of the closed hi-hat.

Let's put a crash on beat one.

There we go, I like that.

So, just like that, in a matter of seconds, I've created a hip hop beat.

Now, what you can do on this, as well, is change the different sounds.

So, I'm going to find my dedicated hip hop drumbeat, and then, the sounds of that drum are going to change.

And notice how, instead of a crash cymbal, we have an "fx" sound.

You don't really get crash cymbals in hip hop music.

Let's see.

I did some cowbells in there.

Let's see what the percussion two sounds like.

Percussion three.

Let's put that on the two and the four, and you can add, or you can have it as busy or as not busy as you would like.

Okay, so that's my finished beat.

Now, the good thing about this particular online drum machine is that I can save it as well, and you can even share it, and you can do some recording in there as well.

I can change the BPM.

So maybe I want it to be faster, and I want it to be 100 BPM and it changes automatically.

And if I ever want to get rid of the beat, I can just tap the squares that I don't want anymore, and, oh, I can press start again over there.

So, that is a quick demonstration of how to create a drum beat.

And, once again, over to you.

Now you are familiar with creating drumbeats on a digital audio workstation.

Let's create a drumbeat for your song so far.

Experiment with different beats from different styles.

One thing I would recommend is finding a loop on BandLab and then trying to recreate that loop, and experiment with a rock loop and a hip hop loop.

Click pause, again, spend about 10 to 15 minutes completing this task, and then click resume once you are finished.

Drum fills.

A fill is defined as a short break in the main beat or groove.

There's a pattern that fills in the gaps of the music, and/or signals the end of a phrase.

Let's hear the drum fill from the song "Imagine".

After that, we'll hear a more complex drum fill.

While you listen, I would like you to answer the question, which drum fill is more appropriate for "Imagine", and why? What was the difference between each drum fill, and why do you think that John Lennon chose to use the drum fill that he did? We've talked about texture and harmony being purposefully simple so that we can focus more on the lyrics and the messages in the song.

Why not have a go at trying to create a drum fill in BandLab or on your drum machine? Don't forget to save your work.

And once you've finished, head back to the slides for our final task.

And your final task for today.

How can drum battens communicate different musical styles? Write a paragraph that answers this question.

And that wraps up this lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you in the next one.

Share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @oaknational and #learnwithOak.