Welcome to the quintuplet drum beats and fills lesson. Here we will learn how to play quintuplet drum beats.

What the heck is a quintuplet beat you ask? Well let me start by saying that it is not the most common rhythm type. You definitely won’t need this groove in a top 40 covers band!

So these are definitely not essential grooves but they are a lot of fun and they are really interesting. So for me that’s enough of a reason to learn them. And like with everything else in music, once you have something in your vocabulary then you might use it somewhere. If you can’t speak using those phrases then you definitely won’t use them.

You are probably familiar with note values such as 8th notes, 16th notes and triplets. These are common subdivisions to use on the hi-hat in drum beats.

So if you consider that a 16 beat plays four hi-hats in each beat, then quintuplet grooves play five notes in each beat. 

So in concept these are not difficult at all. Except they are difficult because we are used to subdividing rhythm into twos, threes and fours. But fives is weird!

So in theory these are not difficult but if you haven’t played them before then they will feel strange.

If this all sounds a little confusing, don’t worry! This quintuplet drum lesson breaks it down very slowly so a beginner drummer can understand it. You’ll even get a backing track to play along with.

Scroll down to start the quintuplet drum beats and fills lesson.