Trap drum beats have become incredibly popular over the past decade. While they mainly come from the trap music style, they’re often used in all kinds of hip-hop, rock, and metal music.
As a drummer, it can be very useful to know how to emulate them on your drum kit, seeing as most trap grooves are created with 808 sounds on a computer.
Here’s a short guide on how to play them. We’ll touch on a few different aspects that you can work on and improve to play some groovy trap drum beats.
One of the most iconic parts of trap drum beats is the quick rolls on the hi-hats. When the beats are computer-generated, these rolls are very easy to create.
It’s a bit trickier on a drum kit, as you’re going to need to use your hand technique skills to play consistent patterns.
The rudiment you need to work on here is called a double-stroke roll, and it’s when you play two right-hand strokes followed by two left-hand ones in quick succession.
When you fit this rudiment into a standard groove, you’ll get that iconic trap hi-hat roll sound.
You can also think of it as a five-stroke roll. This is when you play a double stroke, but you end with one last single stroke with the hand that you started the rudiment with. This will bring you back to the straight eighth notes that you would have been playing previously on the hats.
Trap music is also full of triplet rhythms. These can be played on the hi-hats, snare drum, or bass drum.
You essentially want to add them in occasionally to create embellishments that drive the groove forward.
As a starting point, try to play them on the hi-hat in the same place that you would have played a double-stroke roll. When you get comfortable with that, try to play them on the snare and bass drum.
You can play both 8th-note and 16th-note triplet rhythms. Both sound great in trap drum beats.
Most trap beats are played in half-time. This refers to when you only have one backbeat in every bar. With normal grooves, you’ll play the snare drum on beats two and four in a bar.
With half-time trap drum grooves, you’ll only play the snare drum on beat three. This half-time feel is iconic for drum drum beats, so you need to get very comfortable with how it feels to play on the drums.
With trap drum beats mostly being made with 808 sounds on computers, they all have an electronic sound to them.
If you want to emulate that with an acoustic drum set, it’s a good idea to have a drum or cymbal that can give you a sound similar to a hand clap.
There are two main ways that drummers get this sound. The first is by placing a splash cymbal on the snare drum. When you hit the splash with the shoulder of your drumstick, you’ll get a metallic sound that resembles a handclap sound.
The second method, which has become far more common in the last few years, is to get a clap stack. Clap stacks are stacked cymbals that are designed to accurately reproduce a handclap sound.
The original clap stack cymbal was created by Istanbul Agop, but most major cymbal brands offer equivalent options now.
The final tip is to use software to help you work on grooves. All audio production programs have beat-making tools that make creating drum grooves very simple.
It’s a good idea to use those to make beats and then try your best to emulate what you just made on your acoustic drum set.
Doing this often will help you recognize the sounds needed for trap grooves, and then you’ll be able to pull them out when jamming on the kit.
It depends on the complexity of the trap grooves you’re playing. If you have mastery over the double-stroke and five-stroke roll rudiments, you should have an easy time playing trap grooves.
If those techniques are a bit wonky in your playing, you may find it difficult to play solid trap grooves that feel groovy.
However, some groovy trap grooves are very simple, and even beginner drummers can learn to pick them up quite easily.
The best way is to play as much hip-hop music as possible. When you hear what the drum beats are doing in those songs and then you try to emulate the patterns on your own drum kit, your skills will quickly improve when it comes to playing trap beats.
The more you do this, the better you’ll get. You should also work on your double-stroke and five-stroke roll rudiments. Having those mastered will make playing trap beat embellishments a lot easier.
Any type of drum kit will work well for playing trap drum beats. However, it will help to incorporate a electronic drum set somehow, as that’s what trap music needs.
You can do this by placing electronic pads around your acoustic drum kit and then connecting them to a trigger module.
You could also use a sampling pad, such as the Roland SPD-SX, which is the industry-standard tool for drummers that play with hip-hop artists to have.
Trap drumming is a lot easier to learn than many other styles, but it’s still one that can get a lot of people stuck.
It’s best to listen to as much music as possible. That will get you in the zone, and you’ll get a feel for what the drums need to be doing in the style.
The next step is to play along with a lot of music. Add in the trap beats that you’ve been working on and see if they fit. If they do, repeat the process and keep improving.
Drum Teacher
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.
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