Timpani playing is deceptively tricky. On the surface the rhythms are generally easy and usually you are asked to play only two notes. But, there is an awful lot of technique involved in playing these amazing drums properly. In these lessons I cover the basics like tuning, rolling and give you exercises that can help […]

This is the fun stuff! Tambourine, Triangle, Castanets and more make up this category of the percussion family. While each of these instruments is a percussion instrument they each have their own unique playing technique. Percussionists need to know several different techniques on every instrument in the section and these techniques have to be practiced […]

Every percussionist needs to know how to play the snare drum. It’s usually the first instrument we learn how to play and the techniques that we need to know on the snare drum help us with many of the techniques we’ll need when play on all of the other percussion instruments. In this series of […]

Hand drumming is possibly the most ancient form of percussion. Here you’ll find lessons where the only thing you need is two hands and a surface to drum on. We also cover the basics of some of the more classic hand drumming instruments like the djembe and the bodhran. Follow along with these lessons and […]

Find downloadable exercises for all of the instruments taught on Free Percussion Lessons and even get some music to play! If you’d like our full list of percussion lessons, see our Percussion Lessons Index page. Classical Music Downloads This is a great site where you can download classical sheet music for free. The Music Library […]

Playing the concert bass drum involves some specialized techniques and you can learn about those techniques here. What mallets should I use? How do I tune a Concert Bass Drum? How do I dampen the bass drum? How do I get the best sound from the drum that I can? What types of concert bass […]