So what are blast beats? If you take a look at Figure 1, you'll see some very typical blast beats. Blast beats consist of multiple snare hits in a row usually done with either the right or left hand while the other free hand plays a cymbal rhythm to support it. The bass drum often follows the speed of the snare drum but also can be played double the speed; as in 16th note snares - 16th note bass drums or 16th note snares - 32th note bass drums.
Growing up I was never really much of an advocate for blast beats. To me, it always felt like a drummer's excuse for not coming up with a more rhythmically interesting pattern. Over the years I began to discover more bands and finally started to see blast beats in a different light. Drummers are doing all kinds of awesome rhythms now underneath blast beats with their feet, or in some cases accenting cymbal hits for certain rhythms. In any case it was clear to me I was going to have to step up my game on blast beats.
So I hit the studio to go practice and early on I decided to develop a certain way of practicing my blast beats (Figure 2). When I practiced this it occurred to me that while playing measure 7 I had a clear advantage to playing blast beats as the energy is now being more evenly divided between my hands versus making one hand do all of the work. For those who have studied rudiments, it is basically a flam tap without the flam (hopefully). I began to work more with this technique and I have found it makes for some very interesting patterns! If you continue to practice the exercises in Figure 2, you can also combine them to make different patterns.
Example: Measure 6 has a snare hit every 3 16th notes where as measure 7 has a snare hit every 2 16th notes. If we play two beats of measure 6 and 1 beat of measure 7, we add up to 8 16th notes. This is great for breaking simple rhythms into slightly more sophisticated ones.
I give a brief example of this technique in my video but I hope to add more to it soon!
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