How to Play Eighth Notes

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Shawn Schaefer on behalf of Expert Village and today, we're going to learn the basics in rock drumming. I like to call it, "Rock Drumming 101 - The Basics". So, now that we know how to play a basic quarter note drum beat - one, two, three and four - we're going to move on to what are called, "eighth" notes. Like quarter notes, there is four in one bar. You have this one bar. Well, let's take that same one bar, and let's play eighth notes, for an example. Well, eighth notes, there's eight in a bar, right? But you don't count them one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Basically, each quarter note, the four quarter notes - one, two and three, four - they get a second note, if you will, or a second eighth note. And you count it like this: one and two and three and four and... okay?. So, the quarter note beat, to count one bar would be one, two, three, four. Eighth notes would be counted as one and two and three and four and. So you still have your four quarter notes, one, two, three and four. But each quarter note consists of two eighth notes: one and, two and, three and, four and. Now it's important to note, we were talking about a puzzle earlier, that an eighth note - the "and" if you will, like say, "one and" - the "and" of "one" is exactly in between beat one and beat two. So, if you have one - well, let me do it this way - one and two, right, "and" would be exactly in the center. So you would have one and two. Right? One and two. It's exactly in the middle, or symmetrical. So let's practice counting bars of eighth notes, or measures of eighth notes. It would go like this: one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and. Keep practicing counting those eighth notes. Like I said, practice makes perfect, and that's going to be instrumental in what we're going to be doing next. As a drummer, you always have to count, and this is just an extension of counting quarter notes. We're learning how to count eighth notes. This is very important. So keep practicing, and let's see what we've got next."