Beginner Ghost Notes

Ghost notes are basically quiet strokes. Ghost notes add feel to whatever you play, being especially applicable to groove based music like funk, hip-hop, blues, fusion, and drum ‘n’ bass. Nonetheless, it’s common to listen to ghost notes in jazz, Latin, pop, and a lot of different styles of rock music. Therefore, learning how to play consistent and low sounding ghost notes is a must if you want to take your drumming to the next level or even be a professional drummer. In this free drum lesson, Jared Falk teaches you three beginner drum beats that encompass ghost notes, and shares some tips that are sure to help you play ghost notes to your fullest potential in no time.

These exercises are fairly basic variations on the stock 8th note rock drum beat. Focus on the hand patterns if you’re having issues with playing the drum beats as notated. Add the bass drum on counts 1 and 3 once you’re able to play consistent sounding and evenly spaced ghost notes. This is enough to master exercise #1. For exercises #2 and #3 you just have to add bass drum strokes to the “and” of counts 1 and 3.

The exercises notated on this free drum lesson have ghost notes on the snare drum only. Since ghost notes represent a low sounding dynamic level they are not limited to a single instrument. Therefore, you can apply it to any other instrument on the drum set, including the bass drum and the toms. Just remember that the secret to playing great sounding ghost notes is in bringing the drumstick or the bass drum beater close to the surface of the instruments as you’re about to play them.

You can keep expanding on the content from this free drum lesson by taking these 16th note ghost notes and applying them to other drum beats on “DrumLessons.com”. We encourage you to do so by going through the free drum lesson “Beginner Linear Drum Beats“. If you’d rather learn new ideas on how to use ghost notes to spice up your drum beats, we encourage you to check the free drum lesson “Intermediate Ghost Notes” next.