Six Play-Along Tune Videos

These are simple videos of snare and bass drum parts to demonstrate these tunes. They are played slowly at 60 beats per minute to clearly illustrate the sticking combinations. Read along on the sheet music as you watch the video to help learn each tune. Once you can play along with a video at that tempo, increase the playback speed a little at a time up to 96 BPM.

Below each image is a link to download the file directly if preferred to not use the Youtube player. They are large files!

As you memorize and master each tune, add it to your regular practice session list of tunes, so it stays in your memory. Once you have passed all six of these pieces, you are ready to carry a drum in formation. Congratulations!
Download Video File

Tune #1 - The World Turned Upside Down

Section A of The World Turned Upside Down is only four measures long, but it repeats four times rather than the traditional two times. Measure four has a ten-stroke roll. This is tricky! Play just this roll at least several times to get it working well. Don't move to the second half of the tune until you can play this well!
The second half has more combinations of both eleven and seven-stroke rolls with paradiddles, and flamadiddles. Go nice and slow until you have all the sticking figured out and working correctly. Look carefully at measure nine. Map the notes by name. You should have: 1 2 & & 4 &. There is no note on the & of 1. There is also no note on beat 3. The flam is played on the & of beat 3, and the grace note of the flam looks as if it is on beat 3, but it's not. Be sure to read the notes by value. Don't let the spacing of the symbols throw you off.

Tune #2 - Road to Boston

What is that crazy % looking symbol in the second section?... Map the notes by name for the first line, and you'll see that all the flams fall right on the beats. You just need to figure out the eighth and sixteenth notes around them. The snare and bass drums play matching paradiddles in measures two and four. The down beat of section B starts off with an eleven-stroke roll. By now, we've become so used to seven-stroke roll pick-ups, that starting the roll on the down beat can be a challenge. Focus on making this change crisp! That 5 symbol in measure 7 is a Repeat Measure symbol. It means to repeat exactly whatever was in the previous measure. All of the paradiddles and flamadiddles in Road to Boston are accented on the “off” hand – the hand that only plays one note. This applies to both snare drum and bass drum. Find all the paradiddles and check the accents. Check your sticking, and be sure you're playing the three rights in a row in the second half. Bass drummers will play the same one-bar phrase nine times in a row, so pay special attention to counting your repetitions!
Download Video File
Download Video File

Tune #3 - The Harriet

Start S-L-O-W-L-Y and work out the notes by name. The Harriet has more ruffs with fewer seven-stroke rolls than previous tunes. As in White Cockade, there are sticks “UP” parts for the snare drum where the bass drum plays short solos. Remember to make the up movements quick and sharp. Don’t let them be slow and lazy.

Tune #4 - White Cockade

The Bass drum has two short solo sections while the snare sticks are up. The first solo is eighth notes. The second solo are sixteenth note double triplets, also called a sixlet. This is not simple to play on a bass drum, so practice it many times to get it to fit into the tune. Playing these notes on the bass drum requires precise timing and skillful even dynamics to hear all the notes clearly.
Download Video File
Download Video File

Tune #5 - British Grenadiers

British Grenadiers has another version of the back-and-forth counterpoint between the bass drum and snare drum right from the start. The snare starts with the usual seven-stroke roll pick up, but the bass drum does not play on the down beat. Instead, it plays starting on the & of beat 1, with a left-right combination. Then the snare plays two sixteenth notes into a flam. This counterpoint pattern repeats and requires drummers to pay attention to each other to make the tune sound right. Pay special attention to the different phrasing here. Musically, British Grenadiers tells a different rhythmic story.

Tune #6 - Welcome Here Again

Welcome Here Again has combinations of more different symbols than previous tunes. The flams on all the down beats and beat 2 make this rhythm easy to remember. The bass drum has two long rest sections in part B, so count carefully.
Download Video File
<--- Previous Learning Page