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What is drum timing? To put it simply, it is the time frame taken between the sound of a hi-hat and the sound of a hi-hat with a snare drum combination being played together. Drum timing is that short, silent time gap between the sounds of the percussion & a drum.

Depending on the speed of any song as determined in the music score on the stave before the 1st musical note is being played, it can be as fast as 32 beats, which means that a drummer has to drum 32 times within 4 seconds; or it can be as slow as 1 or 2 beats.

Typically, the faster the beat count, the shorter the silent time gap before the next percussion or drum is being played, and the whole process is being repeated until the end of a song.

This is the most important part of being a drummer or a leg drummer because if you miss a beat, you’ll jeopardise the whole song and that’s why i’ll delicate the rest of this article on how to instill the drum timing in you.

I’m sure you have your own favourite rock or heavy metal band, and i’m sure you’ll zero in on the drummer don’t you? You might have seen the drummer mumbling to himself right?

No, the drummer isn’t mumbling to himself, rather he is doing his job as a drummer to keep the tempo going for the song. If you notice and listen actively, the drummer is mumbling something like “bumm” for every beat that he drums.

He is keeping up the drum timing by mumbling to himself.

After giving you a scenario, the question now is: how to instill the timing in you?

This is the part where you have to put in your own effort. You need to find all the songs that you like to listen to, with different kinds of drummings and speed of the songs that you can get your hands on and most importantly, listen to the drummings of all the songs that you like to listen.

While listening, listen carefully to the drum timing between the hi-hat and the hi-hat with snare drum combination. You should be able to hear that short, silent time frame.

During listening, count out loud for the beginning part of your leg-drum journey, the drummings and percussions of the songs that you’re listening to.

Count out loud for every sound of the drum system that you can hear and etch that drum timing into your heart.

In the beginning it is very hard, but you can master it eventually if you practice diligently every day.

The key to instilling the drum timing in you is to practice it hard every day without fail. This will definitely test your perseverance and concentration.

The next step is to “transfer” the sounds that you made from your mouth onto your legs. You can use your own method, or you can use mine.

In the beginning of my own leg-drum journey, I differentiated the sound of a hi-hat and the sound of a hi-hat and snare drum combination with my left and right legs.

For the hi-hat only, I use the top part of my left foot using my left heel as a pivot and when the snare drum comes in, I use the heel of my right foot to represent the snare drum.

Now, using my method, you can transfer from your mouth to your legs. You can use your songs to try this new “art”.

For every hi-hat sound that you hear from your song, transfer it to the top part of your left foot, and for the hi-hat and snare drum combination that you hear, transfer it to your right foot with your left foot still playing for the combination. Repeat it until the end of the song.

Never mind the stylish “drumming patterns” that you hear from the songs you listen to, I’ll cover it in some other articles to come.

The speed of the different songs that I ask you to find are for your exposure and practice before you can instill the drum timing into you.

Lastly, how do you know if you have instilled the different drum timings into you? When you know and you can execute the drum timing together with the song with perfect precision.

That means if your right foot can execute precisely together with the snare drum in the song, you have instilled the drum timings of all the different speeds of songs inside you