How to Play Metal Drums and Hard Rock in 2024
Heavy Metal Drumming is undoubtedly one of the most popular drumming styles in recent times, but it is often misunderstood. If you are a drummer, then you should try learning this style as it will help you to unlock a lot of your capabilities. There are different forms of metal drumming; some of them are death metal, thrasher metal, and heavy metal. But no matter what the type is, you need to grab the basic metal drumming techniques, and you’ll be able to play them all. It is also best to get the best drum set for metal in the market.
Most people have this perception about metal drumming that you need to play the drums extra loud and need to have long and rough hair to play heavy metal. Well, because most of the heavy metal bands did all this, it does not necessarily mean that you have to do it as well. In this article, we will dig into heavy metal drumming; we’ll see what it is and how you can learn to play this genre. See the details for the Best Intermediate Trumpets.
What is Metal Drumming?
Since the invention of this genre, many bands came, and many went, but nobody knows who came up with this form of drumming. But whenever you think about Metal, one group will always come first in your mind, ‘Metallica.’ Well, this has something to do with their name, but actually, they were one of the first bands that were the pioneers of Heavy Metal. And if you’ll listen to Metallica, their beats are what we can say the prime examples of the primary metal grooves.
Heavy Metal is similar to rock music, but it has more intense, virtuosic, and powerful beats. This style of music features aggressive sounds of distorted guitar riffs accompanied by loud and constant drum beats. But is Metal similar to hard rock?
Difference Between Hard Rock and Metal
Rock music originated back in 1950, whereas metal music later came out a decade later, and it is considered as a subgenre of rock music.
The distorted sounds are featured in both genres but heavy metal has much more distortion as compared to that of rock. And since we are talking about the sounds, the sound of metal is more in-depth and higher if we compare it to rock. The main difference these genres have would be the utilization of the guitar power cord, which is done in Metal music and not in rock. If we look closely at both these genres, we’ll find that the keyboard is the key instrument in rock music, but in the case of metal music, you don’t see it much.
But as we have discussed the difference between rock and metal, it does not change the fact that metal is a subgenre of rock. We can say that the metal music revolves around loud and amplified guitar riffs, rhythm guitar drum kit, lead guitar, and bass guitar. But in the case of rock, you will not find such an observation.
Learning Metal Drumming
Master the Basics
If you want to learn metal drumming, it would be wiser to start with the basics. For that work on your binary rhythm. Both rock and metal have a binary rhythm. If you are familiar with a drum kit, you will find it comes with hi-hat, the snare, and bass drum. By using them, practice the conventional dum-tsh beat.
Hit Them Hard
For metal drumming, you need to show some aggressive hitting on the snare and bass drum. Hit them hard, but precisely and fast. If you want to be fast on the bass drum, it is an excellent technique to use the ball of your feet to hit the pedal. Precision is the key. Make sure your left hand is in complete coordination with your right hand. Use your left hand to hit the snare. Check out the Best Condenser Mics, a great choice for recording.
Using Double Bass Pedal
As for metal, you need speed and strength, so it is a good idea to use a double bass pedal, which gives the sound of two bass drums at once, and you do not require to have two separate kick drums. So, it can be useful to have a double-bass-pedal, but if you want to have two kick drums instead, you can have them.
Playing with The Double Pedal
To play the bass drum with double-pedal, you would require to make use of both of your feet, it will not only help you to hit the drums faster, but it will also help you to increase your precision. A ton of the metal drummer prefers to have these pedals. Create your essential beat in many iconic songs with the Best Jazz Snare Drums.
In the conventional drum bass pedal, you place the lever next to the beater. The same is the case with the double-pedal, where one of the “pedals” has the same position as the conventional pedal. However, there is a change of placement when it comes to the second pedal, which is usually placed right next to the hi-hat pedal.
While playing drums with a double pedal, you need to give proper consideration on how to position the pedals. The placement of your legs is the key. It is usually considered ideal to have both your thighs parallel to the ground. But still, if you have any confusion, you should ask for the advice of a professional or get yourself some help from a tutor who can also give you proper information of what drumming technique will be the best for you. Since double pedals require you to use both your legs, you would expect a completely new method, plus, you would have to work on your coordination as well.
Metal drumming is a vast genre. Not only is it considered one of the most popular rock genres in the world, but it is one of the most loved ones as well. In this article, we tried to tell everything you need to know to get started to play Metal. Practice is the key. Keep on playing your heart out and enjoy learning new music every day. For more information, please visit Metal Drum Machine.