COFFE CUP DRUM KIT

Drum sets are pretty big and loud! Chances are they’ll be hard to play in the house - fear not though, we’re going to create a DIY drum set you can play anywhere at home! All you need is a chair as your drum throne and some cups to represent your drums so we can work on rhythm with this tiny DIY drum set!

THINGS YOU’LL NEED

• Chair • 4 cups (mugs or water glasses) • 2 pens/pencils

ACTIVITY

1. The best place to set up your kit is at a dining table or at a desk. Pull over a chair and set up the 4 cups on the surface - we’ll get to how to arrange them on step 2. We’re going to want it to be set up the same way a drum set is set up, so the cups will be in this order, from left to right - HI HAT, SNARE, HIGH TOM, FLOOR TOM. Your right foot will represent the BASS DRUM. 2. Instead of playing on the rim of the cup, you’re going to flip all the cups upside down so our target can be a circle. You want to use mugs or water glasses so that when you flip them over, they’ll have a nice round surface- just like a drum! The end result should look something like this (from left to right - hi-hat, snare, high tom, low tom, drumsticks ): 3. Now that our drums are set up and ready to rock, let's go over a few pointers before we start practicing our grooves. Drumsticks : hold your drumsticks like you would full-sized ones (thumb on top, fingers curled underneath, semi-tight grip). Hi-Hat : whenever playing a groove involving a hi-hat, crossover with your right hand on top - your left hand will be below, playing the snare on its respective beats. Bass Drum: when there’s a hit on the bass drum, you will simply stomp your foot on the floor. Counting: super important for drummers! Make sure you are counting throughout these grooves so you can keep time and make sure the hits are in the right place. The drummer is the backbone of the band who everyone else relies on to be on beat. 4. Here is a brief guide on how to read drum grooves, with an intro groove to jam to. All grooves are written in eighth notes, which means you would count along using “one AND two AND three AND four AND.” DRUM GROOVE KEY:

Don’t get nervous abou the music staff! Each line simply represents a hit on that part of your drum kit! 5. Once you are comfortable and nail this groove, here’s a bunch of others to jam along to! They vary in difficulty, so if something doesn’t make sense just skip over it! Some of the exercises will be using more toms than we have, so feel free to either add another “tom” or play the drum fills using only 2 toms. BEATS:

BEATS WITH FILLS: