Thrash Metal Drumming - Skank Beats / Double Time 

It’s simple but deceptive. I’ve met dozens of people who thought they could play thrash and couldn’t. It’s harder than it looks. Everyone assumes it’s stupidly easy because the rhythm is often fairly repetitive but that’s not the hard part...

Well I've been playing drums for approximately five minutes and I agree

Nice. Sounds like this is what you need. It’s not complicated but that doesn’t make it easy.

If you buy them all and work on them you probably will be able to play the drums eventually.

Tuned it, put a tiny piece of tape on the old worn out head. It’s a nice snare to start with. Black Panther Sledgehammer. I’m using a $12 57 clone.

@@RyanAlexanderBloom $12 57 clone?

@@itz_vortex7341 The microphone. :)

I don't think I could play like this in 2004 either. My first attempt came in 2007, even though I had been playing drums for 10 years at that point, I hadn't really ever learned thrash.

It originates from"Ska beat" later used by fast punk bands and yet even later used by most contemporary hard rock and metal.

Thanks I think I just got lucky on the mic placement for once.

@@RyanAlexanderBloom can definitely relate

It sure is

d-beat

I always avoided the slow blast in my thrash playing. It is funny though, sometimes in black or death metal you want to blast in a slower riff and it ends up sort of sounding like a fast bad skank... the line is blurry.

You’ll find every variation on successful recordings, even the one I caution against, but the main reason I dissuade people from using it is that lots of people use it because they’re being lazy, not because they’ve made the artistic choice to go with that sound. I’d rather that aspiring drummers thought of it as lesser so that there is more motivation to learn the other 2 hi hat placements first... even though they’re more challenging to play.

No, sorry, Hudson pushed back the release date to "September or October" in the week it was supposed to come out originally. I was planning on July but they threw me a bit of a curve ball. I'll post another related video when its out, which is hopefully in the next month.

@@RyanAlexanderBloom awesome, looking fwd, thanks!

I never dead hit. I also don’t always rimshot. Depends on what I’m doing. I’m usually not playing rimshots while playing blasts or skank beats.

Relax. Try to use Moeller strokes or push/pull or some other version of a multiple fulcrum stroke to spread the tension out. Relax. Use the rebound of the cymbal. And practice more.

Black Panther Sledgehammer with probably a coated ambassador on it.

@@RyanAlexanderBloom thanks for your answer !

Look up Moeller technique. I have a video on my channel about it.

Yes, if you visit Hudson Music it’s available for download. hudsonmusic.com/product/thrash-metal-drumming/

Moeller strokes basically.

I’m not sure I know who Paul is, or at least I can’t place the name right now, but I don’t really play triplets unless the beat is in triplets specifically. If the tempo gets too fast the go-to solution is to just play hi hat when you play the snare. Never the opposite. But you can get away with snare/hat combo only if you’re playing a fast enough speed.

Ok I just figured out who that is. Gotcha.

Yeah it must be totally psychological because it logically makes no sense.

Well, typically this is thought of as an 8th note beat, so I don’t quite know what you mean by shift to the “and” of the beat. I’m familiar with some of Jason’s playing and yes there are many other variations. This is just a start. I’ve got 18 variations and 8 transcribed phrases in the book. Plus a whole section on punk and d-beat, not addressed in this video, which is also similarly played in double time, but uses more variations in bass drum placement. Obviously I’m not covering everything in 11 minutes.

Sent the link to your email.

Interesting. There's also a "skanking" related to ska-punk and Ihave no idea if that is related... I would assume that it is. I have really never heard anyone talk about it in a thrash context, but maybe I'm just not old enough.

@@RyanAlexanderBloom well it was used a lot in crossover thrash bands that incorporated punk to their sound too. Ironic how lots of the thrashers and punks despised eachother but ended up realizing how similar their music was, thrash was just punk with the more technical and heavy ingredients of metal mixed in. Very confusing history but ultimately the genre's conjoined and accepted eachother. I'm only 23 I just do my research lol. Check out Cryptic Slaughter's song "lowlife" and DRIs song "thrashard". Perfect examples and cs actually may have been the fastest at the time.

Yeah punk and metal have evolved very similarly through time. Lots of people still can’t distinguish deathcore from death metal even though it’s glaringly obvious to those who are truly familiar with the historical sound of ether one.a lot of kids these days lump all of the modern punk/core with metal and make no distinction at all, even dudes playing in bands of one type will refer to it erroneously as the other, not being able to mentally or aurally separate the punk influence from the metal. But crossover aside, hardcore punks and old school metal heads still don’t enjoy one another’s company or their bands.

Polka

A lot of people do consider them the same exact thing. It’s very common to use that term in Europe. Less over here, but it still happens a lot. The late kick here is more called a D beat or something like that.

@@RyanAlexanderBloom I remember "d beat" basically being a slow blast beat. Like punk rock style. Whenever I asked my drummer to use a "skank" it always meant the riff had a punk/grindcore feel to it ;)

I’m pretty serious, yeah. Virgil Donati, Derek Roddy, Marco Minneman, and many other metal drummers have books, but they all start at insanely hard and get harder. There are also about 1 billion beginner rock books. I thought someone might appreciate something in the middle. Dead serious.

If you’re trying to join a band run by a guitar player you might care if they like you. That’s one time where it matters a little bit.