There are four main elements that create every drum groove, fill, solo, or song.

It is incredibly helpful to be able to isolate these variables, especially for the purposes of analyzing and learning to play a groove or song.

1) Instruments -- which drums and cymbals we play. Though the drum set is generally thought of as one instrument, a drummer will consider all the unique drums and cymbals that make up the whole. Most drum sets include a snare drum, bass drum, high tom, medium tom, low tom, hihat cymbals, ride cymbal, and crash cymbal.

2) Rhythms -- the timing of notes and rests. Different rhythms and rests have different lengths. You will

often hear: 'types of rhythms', 'rhythm types', and 'subdivisions'. Each individual strike is called a 'note.'

Related to rhythms, we use counts to describe the numbers and letters that help us discuss rhythms. Think of counting like giving every note a "street address" for location purposes.

3) Sticking -- the order of hands and feet used to play a pattern. Sometimes sticking matters very little--there may be many ways to efficiently play the measure. Other times, there will

only be one way to 'stick' the measure with any realistic comfort.

4) Dynamics -- how loudly and softly we play, and the ways we change volumes.

There are many vocabulary words under the umbrella of dynamics. Let's make a few distinctions:

Overall dynamics - Hard rock music is generally loud. Piano jazz is relatively quiet.

Accent - A little extra EM-phasis on a note without affecting the notes around it.

Crescendo/Decrescendo - Musical terms for 'gradually get louder' and 'gradually get softer'

Articulation - different ways in which notes can be played, i.e. long, short, aggressive. Drummers do not see as many articulation markings as most other instrumentalists do.

Newer drummers will notice the multiple uses of the word "beat." I recommend substituting a more precise word in place of the word "beat" whenever possible. For example:

"What a cool drum beat!" can become "What a cool drum groove!"

"Hit the snare drum on beat 2." can become "Hit the snare drum on count 2."

"There are a lot of beats in that measure." can become "There are a lot of notes in that measure."

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