29 Great Drum Songs to Play

Practical Guide

By Brett Clur
March 19, 2024

Intro

One of the best things to do on the drums is plug in a set of headphones and jam to all your favorite songs.

As you learn to play, you’ll learn to play a variety of different tracks, and it’s always a great time going back to those.

In this guide, we’re going to show you 29 songs that have amazing drum parts to play. We’ll also explain how Drumeo can help with the whole process. It’s a deal that you can’t pass up.

Table of Contents

29 Great Drumming Songs

1. Livin’ on a Prayer – Bon Jovi

This tune is a classic in the rock style, and it’s fairly easy to play on the drums. It just incorporates 8th note grooves for the whole song, and you constantly switch between playing hi-hats and cymbals.

2. Clocks – Coldplay

Clocks is most well-known for the piano part, but the drum part is also really fun to play.

The drum rhythms match the piano rhythms, and you play the snare drum a lot more in the grooves than you would in most other tracks.

3. My Hero – Foo Fighters

My Hero is one of the best Foo Fighters songs when it comes to what’s been played on the drums. It starts with a huge drumming intro, and you continue to play heavy grooves and fills throughout the entire tune.

4. Holiday – Green Day

The bouncy feel of this track makes it an amazing one to play on the drums. The first tom roll before the groove sets the scene, and the rest of the grooves are strong and vibrant.

You start on the floor tom, and then you move your right hand over to the hi-hats and cymbals.

5. When The Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin

This is one of Led Zeppelin’s most loved songs. John Bonham always played incredible drum parts, and the intro 16th note groove here perfectly fits the song.

It’s meant to sound huge, so make sure that you’re playing as hard as you can when playing drums with this tune.

6. Are You Gonna Go My Way – Lenny Kravitz

This track starts with quarters being played on the snare. Make sure to strike the snare with hard rimshots to match the energy of the intro guitar part.

You then play a small snare drum fill and then go into the driving 8th note groove.

7. Beat It – Michael Jackson

Beat It has one of the most iconic drum intros of any of Michael Jackson’s songs. You can see exactly what to play on the Drumeo transcription, as well as all the parts for the rest of the song.

It’s also a fairly easy song for beginners to play, but the tricky part is that it’s quite fast.

8. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana

There aren’t too many drummers that don’t love playing this song. It’s always a good time, and it’s one of those tunes where you can just let loose on the drum kit.

It has an iconic groove that put Dave Grohl on the map when the song first came out.

9. Superstition – Stevie Wonder

Here’s another song with an amazing drum intro. It has a very bouncy feel, along with a strong four-on-the-floor groove.

If you want to play some funky beats, this is one of the best tracks to start with.

10. Chop Suey! – System of a Down

System of a Down songs are some of the most fun songs to play on the drums.

This is the band’s most famous track, and it starts off with a cool tom intro just before the driving groove comes in.

11. Rosanna – Toto

Here’s a song known for the half-time shuffle groove that gets played on the drums. This has been referred to as the Rosanna Shuffle ever since this track was released, and it’s quite tricky to play on the drums.

12. Car Radio – twenty one pilots

Car Radio is an amazing song to play drums to if you love linear drumming. This refers to when your limbs don’t play drums and cymbals at the same time.

You get a lot of that here, and you can see exactly where with Drumeo’s chart.

13. Toxicity – System of a Down

Here’s another fun System of a Down song to play. This one is a favorite of many drummers due to the tom fills played in all the instrumentals. The song gets heavier and heavier, making it better and better.

14. Tom Sawyer – Rush

This track is a bit of a challenge, but you can learn every part note-for-note with the Drumeo chart. If you want to do your best to attempt some Neil Peart drum parts, try it out.

15. Uptown Funk – Bruno Mars

Here’s a song that everyone knows. The drum parts are fairly simple, so it’s a great tune to work through with a drum student.

16. Walk This Way – Aerosmith

The groove in this song is one of the most recognizable grooves that has ever been recorded. You play the same groove through the whole song, making this another simple tune to play along with.

17. Sugar – Maroon 5

Pop songs are often quite difficult to play on the drums, as it’s hard to figure out what to play from listening to the electronic drum parts that were made on computers. Here’s a good example of how Drumeo’s charts will help, as you can see that Sugar is quite an easy tune!

18. No One Knows – Queens of the Stone Age

Here’s another track where Dave Grohl laid down a legendary drum part. It’s very bouncy, and it’s a lot of fun to play on the drums.

19. Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day

This song is amazing for beginners to play drums to. It has very basic grooves, and the tempo is manageable for anyone who has only been playing for a short period.

20. Highway to Hell – AC/DC

Most AC/DC songs are quite easy to play on the drums, but our top pick would be Highway to Hell. It’s also a classic that most people know.

21. Creep – Radiohead

The grooves are quite simple in this song, so it’s a great one to play drums and sing along. If you’re a Radiohead fan, this will also most likely be one of your favorite songs.

22. Give It Away – Red Hot Chill Peppers

This track has a very strong and driving 16th note groove that gets played on open hi-hats. Chad Smith is known to play grooves like this, so if you can perfect this song, you’ll be able to play a lot of other Red Hot Chili Peppers songs.

23. Enter Sandman – Metallica

Most Metallica fans will want this to be the first tune that they learn to play on the drums. It has amazing drum parts, so check out Drumeo’s chart!

24. Come Together – The Beatles

Ringo Starr was an amazing drum part writer, and you can clearly see that when listening to the drum part here. It’s also loads of fun to play for any drummer, so give this one a go.

25. We Will Rock You – Queen

This song only consists of three notes being played over and over for the drum part. You don’t really need a chart to play it. However, it’s a great song for beginner drummers to play while reading a chart to get used to progressing as the chart does.

26. Heathens – twenty one pilots

Here’s another twenty one pilots song for this list that is an amazing one to play on the drums. The drum part is quite easy, so it’s a great tune for beginners to try.

27. Forty Six and 2 – Tool

This is the most challenging song out of all the ones that we’ve mentioned on this list. If you’re an experienced drummer looking for value from these Drumeo charts, this song will cater to you.

The tune has multiple time signature changes, along with highly unique orchestrations on the kit. It’s amazing that Drumeo has somehow transcribed every note that Danny Carey plays here.

28. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover – Paul Simon

This track has one of the most famous grooves that Steve Gadd ever played. Considering that Steve Gadd is known as the groove master, this is an excellent song to learn to work on your grooving.

29. Numb – Linkin Park

Our final suggestion for the list is a banger from Linkin Park. The drumming is very straightforward, but there are a few fills to memorize throughout the tune. This is another tune that just feels amazing to play on the drums.

Things to Consider When Playing These Songs :

Drumeo Has a Play-Along Tool

Drumeo has an amazing integrated play-along tool that you can use when reading the charts of all these songs. As the song plays, a marker goes along with the chart so that you know where you are in the drum part.

You also get a metronome to turn on whenever you feel like you need a bit more solidity with your timing.

The best part of the tool is having the ability to slow tracks down. You can play through whole tracks at slower speeds to practice the parts. Once you get them nailed down, then you can play them at full speed.

Listen to the Drum-Only Versions

Every chart that Drumeo offers also has a section where you can isolate the drum track. You can listen to the drum parts being played without any of the other music playing, and that will give you the clearest idea of what the drum parts are meant to sound like.

It’s brilliant to use when you want to work on the drum parts without being distracted by the rest of the song. You can also slow these drum parts down to practice and get comfortable.

Conclusion

While there are dozens of platforms that have play-along songs out there, no one has done it as well as Drumeo. These free play-along charts are just a taste of what the Drumeo membership offers.

If you sign up for it, you get over 5000 charts to check out. They’ve transcribed full albums, giving you plenty of content to work through.

So, try out all these songs that we’ve suggested, check all the free ones that Drumeo offers that we didn’t list, and then decide if you want to sign up for a Drumeo membership to get even more songs to play.

Brett Clur has a Drum Performance Diploma from Trinity College London has been playing drums for over 20 years. He is passionate about advanced concepts and uses his years of experience to teach his students about them. While he is a full-time drum teacher, he is also working on growing a YouTube channel where shares his insights. You can see him playing there, or on Instagram where he posts daily videos.