Technique

By Rob Bishop | robbishopdrums.com Quick Answer To make your drum fills sound musical, listen to what the rest of the band is doing and respond to it. Most beginners treat fills as a chance to show off. The best fills serve the song — they build tension, mark a transition, or punctuate a phrase. The music around you is already telling you what to play. ----- Most beginner drummers think about fills the wrong way, they treat a fill as a moment to break free, to explode into cr

Rob Bishop | robbishopdrums.com Quick Answer To improve your drum groove, stop focusing on what you play and start focusing on how you play it. Groove comes from consistency, dynamics and space — not more notes. Record yourself and listen back, be critical of what sounds together and what doesn't. The drummers who sound best are not the ones playing the most. They are the ones making every note feel intentional. If your drumming doesn't feel great, even when you’re playing th

Rob Bishop | robbishopdrums.com Quick Answer The Billie Jean drum beat uses a steady hi-hat, kick drum on beats 1 and 3, and snare on 2 and 4 — but what makes it hard is feel, not complexity. The pattern is simple. Playing it with the right pocket and dynamics is what separates a stiff version from one that actually sounds like the record. The Billie Jean drum beat is one of the best beginner grooves you can learn. It’s also one of the hardest to make sound good. That might s

Rob Bishop | robbishopdrums.com Quick Answer If you can’t keep time on drums the problem is almost never talent or coordination, it’s the absence of an external reference. Your internal clock drifts without something to lock against. This is why we use a click and also why we count out loud - we need to teach our mind and body the ''internal pulse''. Use a metronome every single session, start slower than feels necessary, and record yourself regularly. What you hear back will