It's hard to over-exaggerate the importance of ghost notes. Aside from a cool name, ghost notes add flavor to your grooves. They are also one of the easiest ways to sound like an experienced drummer.
Ghost notes on the drums are notes that are played much more quietly. They are most frequently associated with the snare drum but can be played on the kick drum, toms and even cymbals.
When we’re beginning to learn the drums, we tend to play everything at the same sound level. But as we progress, we learn to play louder (accented) and quieter notes (ghost notes). This gives a more rounded sound and a groove that can be felt as well as heard.
Learning how to play ghost notes is a critical skill for every drum beginner. Below you’ll find tips, exercises, and examples which will help you sound like an experienced drummer.
Why play ghost notes
Ghost notes add to the musicality of your playing. Guitars play more than just melody. They add to the rhythmic elements of a song with their up and down strokes. This is a great way to sync-up with the guitarist and match their accents. Ghost notes and hi-hat flourishes make a nice rhythmic compliment to acoustic guitar patterns.
Without getting too scientific, the snare drum resonates at a unique frequency within music. Adding in softer hits is a tasteful way to bring complexity to the music and compliment your fellow bandmates.
We all know the importance of a drummer to popular music. They are the timekeepers of the band. That doesn’t mean they have nothing to add besides a simple rock beat to the song.
Ghost notes are a way to keep yourself excited about the music you’re playing without sounding too busy. Because the added flourishes are not at a fully accented volume, they showcase your control of the groove.
Ghost notes can completely change the feel of a groove and make it sound more funky. Check out the video below to hear Clyde Stubblefield explain how he used this technique on James Brown’s classic tunes “Cold Sweat” and “Funky Drummer”
How to play ghost notes
The snare drum is one of your most vital voices on the drum kit. Ghost notes take the prominent snare drum sound and add it to the background texture of a song.
It’s important not to think of ghost notes only as softer notes played on upbeats, opposite your hi-hat or ride pattern. Good drummers use ghost notes in flams and drags too. They even play them at the same time as hard accents on the hi-hats and kick drum.
Beginner drummers often make the mistake of hitting a single drum with both sticks simultaneously. This chokes the drum head out of a full sound. Flams displace the two hits by putting a lighter ghost note just before the louder hit. It’s a fat sound used for power.
Another rudimental approach to ghost notes is the drag. Once you get comfortable with ghost notes as a single tap, start working in a drag or quick buzz as part of your arsenal.
Dynamics
One of the keys to sounding like a pro is control of your dynamics – the volume of everything you are doing over the course of the music. If every band member played at the same volume, the music would sound muddy and sloppy. Instead, good rock music has a balance between bass, guitar, vocals, drums and other instruments.
In rock and pop music, the snare drum is a prominent instrument compared to the volume of toms, cymbals, and even the rest of the band. The loud crack of a snare on-beat and the punchy thud of a kick drum leave room for softer textures in between. All this creates the danceability people love about music.
There is no standard volume that a ghost note should or shouldn’t be. In drum corps chops, where an even volume for all non-accented strokes is necessary, drummers use ghost notes to add musicality to rudiments.
The best drummers play solos and fills that skilfully use flams and triplet drags. These are rudimentary techniques you’ll get better at by perfecting your dynamics.
Exercises
You may find it challenging at first to play your ghost notes quietly enough. You have to make sure there’s a difference between an accented and unaccented (ghost) note.
For drummers who crossover their right hand to play the hats, try playing ghost notes without lifting up your right hand. Then, when you play a loud hit, lift up your hi-hat stick to make room for the big stroke.
A good exercise is to play 4 quarter notes on the hi-hat. Then start by playing all the alternate notes on your snare drum hand. Now put the kick drum on beat 1. Eventually, you want to put a full snare drum hit on beat 3. At first, this may mean you leave out the third ghost note to prepare for the big accent.
The best way to lay a foundation with a new skill is to start slowly. Check out the 2nd verse of Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Otherside” or Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggios” for some simple but effective examples.
When to play ghost notes
By nature, a ghost note is an unaccented stroke. A strong, steady groove is the perfect place for ghost notes to spice up a beat.
Knowing how to identify a ghost note, you’ll begin to hear them more and more as you listen to music. Developing your ear for drum parts is a crucial step to recreating beats and jamming along to your favorite songs. As you improve your skill, your level of professionalism dictates how perfectly you want to copy the song.
Dennis Chambers, Gavin Harrison, and Billy Cobham are known for incorporating these techniques into their solos and fills. Listen to Cobham’s up-tempo ghost notes at the beginning of Mahavishnu Orchestra’s “One Word”.
Two of the most famous drum breaks feature nothing more than the perfect beat for the song with exciting ghost note chops. James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” (Clyde Stubblefield) and The Winston’s “Amen, Brother” feature drum solos that have been sampled in modern popular music thousands of times.
Because the volume of ghost notes naturally fluctuates, they are one of the hardest elements to copy on a drum machine. A live drummer will always have more feel than programmed drum parts. The better you become at ghost notes proves that the feel and authenticity of having good drummers cannot be replaced!