Playing Two Notes Together
If you have ever seen a drummer playing with a band, you may have noticed that they use both their hands and feet to play the drums. This means they can play two, three, or even four things at the same time. This might sound difficult, but you have already started doing it by tapping your feet as you play!
In the following exercise, the notes written in the bottom space of the percussion clef represent your feet tapping on the floor and the notes in the third space are played by the sticks or by clapping your hands. In all the previous songs, the stems of the notes have gone downwards on the left side of the notes.
In this song, the stems go upwards on the right side of the notes. In drum music that has more than one part, the stems almost always go up. The direction of the stem makes no difference to the way the note is played.
Here is another song showing the part played by your feet as well as your hands. Your counting should remain the same regardless of what your hands and feet are doing. There is a three beat lead-in at the beginning of this song.
