6 Best Online Drum Lessons 2024 – Free & Paid

As with any other instrument, it’s possible to learn the drums online.

But the main thing you need is proper guidance. Without that, you could spend hour upon hour trying to figure out correct technique, posture, music notation, and more.

Drummers need to be able to play complicated rhythmic patterns on demand, and they are generally expected to hold down the beat for the band and have a strong internal clock (the pressure is on!).

In this guide, we’ll look at the best free and paid online drum lessons that will help you hone your skills as a drummer.

Drumeo Edge – Best Online Drumming Lessons

Drumeo Edge is our number one pick for best online drumming lessons. Quite simply, they offer lessons from some of the best drum teachers in the world.

They’ve got a slick online presence and website complete with a Drum Shop where you can buy lessons, accessories, and clothing, as well as a free resources section that includes drum rudiments, a podcast, free lessons, articles, and more.

Promise Of The Course

So, what does Drumeo help you do?

Drumeo has been around for over nine years, which means they’ve had time to build up their platform.

They’ve got lessons from hundreds of the world’s best drummers, and as of this writing, they even have a nine-year anniversary celebration in which you get nine bonuses when you sign up for a membership – QuietPad, drumsticks, Drummers Toolbox, Better Drum Fills, Learn Songs Faster, Rock Drumming, Drumming Techniques Made Easy, Independence Made Easy, and Successful Drumming.

All this for just $4.62 per week.

Drumeo has organized lessons by levels. Here’s a breakdown of what’s available:

• Level 1 – 30 lessons.
• Level 2 – 51 lessons.
• Level 3 – 59 lessons.
• Level 4 – 64 lessons.
• Level 5 – 63 lessons.
• Level 6 – 51 lessons.
• Level 7 – 34 lessons.
• Level 8 – 43 lessons.
• Level 9 – 38 lessons.
• Level 10 – coming in April.

With each level, you advance through beginner lessons, technique and motions, speed and control, as well as rhythm and musicality.

Drumeo is the biggest drum site online, as it offers on-demand access to over 230 courses and 2,000+ lessons focused on hand technique, foot technique, creative drumming, better grooves, independence, rudiments and application, playing songs, double bass, gigging tips, better practice, speed and endurance, musicality, drum solos, electronic drums, developing pocket, showmanship, dynamic drumming, tuning and recording, as well as musical styles.

They even have 1,000+ note for note song breakdowns from every style, era, and skill level, so you can hone your skills by learning your favorite songs.

How Much Does Drumeo Cost?

Drumeo offers two plans depending on your preference:

• Annual – $240 per year. Includes unlimited access to every lesson, The Drumeo Method, artist courses and lessons, song breakdowns and play-alongs, Drumeo Coaches live streams, personal reviews and support, as well as a 90-day money-back guarantee.
• Lifetime – One-time payment of $997. The Lifetime plan gives you access to all the above and of course, unlimited lifetime access.

Drumeo also offers private lessons at $50 per lesson.

The Drumeo Experience

Obviously, Drumeo has got a lot to offer, as we covered in our dedicated Drumeo Edge review. They’ve done a good job of organizing and laying out a curriculum for potential students.

Their homepage is still a tad cluttered and overwhelming, but given the amount of content available, you can’t expect any less.

We had a look at some of their videos and trailers to get a better sense of what’s offered, and it’s evident that their production quality is quite high. They have multiple camera angles, their lessons are engaging and feature more than just talking heads, and sheet music is also available onscreen or as downloads.

Drumeo even offers weekly live events and direct personal feedback on your drumming questions.

They have plenty of customer tutorials just in case you’re wondering what types of results others have been able to achieve using Drumeo.

Training Available

Here’s a breakdown of the training available:

• 200+ courses
• 2,000+ lessons
• 1,000+ songs

Drumeo also connects you with your favorite teachers so you can participate in weekly live events and get your questions answered.

Who Teaches The Course?

As noted, Drumeo gives you access to hundreds of well-known drummers and teachers. Some of the teachers they’ve highlighted include:

• Aric Improta
• Domino Santantonio
• Dorothea Taylor
• John Wooton
• Kaz Rodriguez
• Matt McGuire
• Larnell Lewis
• Michael Schak
• Sarah Thawer
• Todd Sucherman

Overall, if you want the best online drum lessons from beginner to advanced, you should check out Drumeo now.

Drum Ambition

Here's another option if you want to teach yourself drums. Drum Ambition caters primarily to beginner drummers and allows you to learn from the comfort of your own home.

Compared to Drumeo, their online presence is a little basic, but still attractive. On their website, you can get access to free lessons, curriculum, eBooks, and more. They’ve also got a blog and links to their social profiles.

Promise Of The Course

Drum Ambition offers a structured beginner curriculum, five modules of 100 10-minute video lessons, sheet music, and support. You can access their lessons on any device.

Their website is simple, and so is their overall promise – fun lessons for beginners that save them from getting frustrated or getting lost in their practice routine.

It’s always nice to know what to focus on next, especially as a beginner.

How Much Does Drum Ambition Cost?

Drum Ambition offers three plans:

• Solo – $27/month. The Solo plan includes full curriculum, five modules with 100 videos, as well as email and live chat support.
• Rockstar – $199/annual. With the Rockstar plan, you get everything included in Solo plus The Ultimate Survival Guide for Beginner Drummers eBook.
• Concierge – $499/annual. With the Concierge plan, you get everything included in the Rockstar plan plus monthly live video chat (Q&A and goal setting), and a personalized practice plan.

The Drum Ambition Experience

Drum Ambition is a simple, minimal, modern, and friendly website. And this seems like an intentional choice since it’s meant to appeal to beginners.

Their videos are high quality, with slick production and animations, multiple camera angles, sheet music and demonstrations, and more.

Simon DasGupta’s (more on him later) goal with Drum Ambition was to create an experience that would be akin to one-on-one lessons, and he has done a great job of keeping everything interactive, engaging, personal, and simple.

If you’re in doubt at all, just take his free lessons and you will know whether Drum Ambition is for you.

Training Available

Drum Ambition offers five modules of 100 10-minute video lessons made specifically for beginners.

The modules are as follows:

• Module 1 – The Essentials! (20 videos), Learning Music Notation (10 videos)
• Module 2 – The Next Step! (10 videos)
• Module 3 – Mastering the Bass Drum (10 videos)
• Module 4 – Putting It All Together! (10 videos)
• Module 5 – Expanding on Grooves! (10 videos)
• Special Feature Videos (25 videos)

Their curriculum includes:

• Learning beats and fills
• Understanding music notation
• Playing along with songs
• Understanding essential rudiments
• Practicing and setting goals
• Developing good technique
• Understanding equipment
• Getting support when you need it

Who Teaches The Course?

Professional drummer and educator Simon DasGupta is Drum Ambition’s primary instructor.

He has over 20 years of teaching experience. He created Drum Ambition with the vision of creating fun lessons that make it easy for beginner students to learn and reach their goals.

StephensDrumShed.com

StephensDrumShed.com is an online drum school focused on helping you achieve the specific results you’re looking to achieve.

Their website allows you to see what’s available at every level (new drummer, beginner, returner, intermediate, advanced), and there is also an FAQ section for those who want their questions answered before joining the program.

Promise Of The Course

The main promise of StephensDrumShed.com is to help you focus on the things you need to do to be able to achieve your personal goals and desired results on the drums.

The first thing you are prompted to do on the website is pick up your free shortcut program.

There are basically three ways of getting started, though, with the products and programs, free drum lessons, or the free program (30 Days to Better Doubles).

How Much Does StephensDrumShed.com Cost?

It depends on which course or program you purchase.

These are the basic options available, though our focus here will be the Drum Better Daily membership:

• Drum Better Daily – $29.99/monthly, $89/quarterly, $259/yearly
• The Art of Practice – $279
• Groove Secrets – Currently closed

The StephensDrumShed.com Experience

It’s fair to say StephensDrumShed.com has got its own thing going. Doubtless, it’s going to appeal to a certain type of buyer – not a catch-all solution like Drumeo, or a beginner-oriented solution like Drum Ambition. More of a solution for drummers who want specific results from their playing.

Stephen Taylor is the primary teacher, and the “face” of the website. As such, the content revolves around his strengths. Satisfied customers have had some great things to say about him and his content.

We feel the site’s layout is a little unusual, which can certainly affect the overall experience. Again, it’s going to appeal to a certain type of buyer. But it feels like it could be streamlined a little.

It would be nice to see a little more about Taylor on the homepage as well.

But overall, the quality of the videos is quite high, and the sales pages are extensive.

Training Available

Here we’ll focus primarily on Drum Better Daily since it’s the membership option.

With Drum Better Daily, you get:

• Personalized lesson plan from Stephen (upon request)
• Access to 60+ lesson plans
• 100s of video lessons with sheet music
• Done-for-you lesson resources
• Weekly student reviews
• New content added weekly
• Q&A access to Stephen

It would be nice to get a sense of exactly how many videos are available, however, even knowing that new videos are added weekly.

Even so, it’s clear there is quite a bit on the table here.

Who Teaches The Course?

Stephen Taylor is the primary instructor of StephensDrumShed.com. But the website doesn’t offer much information on him, which seems like a significant oversight.

Mikes Lessons

Mikes Lessons offers online lessons for drummers. Their website is slick while being minimal, and it’s designed to get you right into the lessons.

On their website, you can view their lesson library and courses, as well as apps and camps.

Promise Of The Course

Mikes Lessons doesn’t make many bold claims or promises. Their main value proposition is:

• Developing a specific skill set
• Step by step guidance
• Accountability

With their lessons you can improve your speed, fills, grooves, independence, or technique.

How Much Does Mike Lessons Cost?

Mikes Lessons has three plans:

• Monthly Pass – $29.99/monthly
• 6 Month Pass – $149.95/bi-annually (one month free)
• Yearly Pass – $269.90/yearly (three months free)

Membership includes live streaming lessons and Q&A sessions, student reviews, 20 courses, over 100 archived live broadcasts with interactive PDFs, over 100 lessons, and practice tracking.

The Mikes Lessons Experience

We like that Mikes Lessons has a simple, easily navigable, nicely laid out website. In that sense, they present well and are organized and streamlined.

But as with Stephen Taylor, we don’t know Mike from Adam and a small introduction could go a long way.

We like that we can view the lesson library and how all the lessons have been organized alphabetically and via skill level (beginner, intermediate, advanced). There’s even a convenient search bar.

You can get a 30 second preview for most lessons, which gives us a better idea of who Mike is and what he’s capable of.

The videos are high quality, and full of personality. There are multiple angles as well.

Training Available

In addition to a beginner course focused on gear and technique, basic reading, your first rudiment, paradiddle time, bass drum variations, a new subdivision, and “Pat Boone Debbie Boone,” there are courses focused on:

• Hand speed
• Foot speed
• Grooves
• Fills
• Independence
• Rudiments and technique

As noted earlier, there are over 100 lessons and 100+ archived live broadcasts too.

Who Teaches The Course?

Mike Johnston has been playing drums since he was five and spent the next 15 years studying privately under Pete Magadini, Steve Ferrone, and Will Kennedy.

He went onto land his first major label record deal with Simon Says and spent the next five years touring the world. Johnston has also toured with Filter, and in 2016 he won the Modern Drummer Readers Poll award for Clinician/Educator of the Year.

Free Drum Lessons

Free Drum Lessons is just as it sounds – a go-to destination for free online drum lessons. What’s funny about this is that they are the top-ranking site for free drum lessons and are owned by Drumeo. It’s a clever thing Drumeo has done.

Immediately upon entry, we can see that the site offers high-quality drum lesson videos for free, and in exchange for your email address, you can get access to “The Ultimate Drumming Toolbox” too.

Promise Of The Course

Free Drum Lessons offers free video lessons, four sample courses, warmups, as well as some basic beats and fills.

You can get some additional resources in exchange for your email address, and they even have 40 drum rudiments, dynamic drumming, drum theory and notation, and drum set play-along videos.

Considering the resources are free and Free Drum Lessons isn’t required to make any promises, there are certainly a few things worth digging into for beginner drummers.

How Much Does Free Drum Lessons Cost?

It’s free, obviously, but if you want to join Drumeo, refer to the section earlier where we covered what they have to offer and for what price.

The Free Drums Lessons Experience

Impressive, especially considering it’s available for free.

There are a few videos to get you started, an offer to pickup your “toolbox” in exchange for your email address, a note from Jared Falk (“face” of Drumeo) letting you know what’s available, as well as a big list of links directing you to free lessons and special offers depending on what you’re looking for.

Even the lesson pages are nicely structured, with a video at the top, the option of downloading PDFs and MP3s, as well as some supporting text/documentation for each lesson.

In some cases, there are even links to additional lessons and resources.

There’s no doubt that Free Drum Lessons is designed to get you hooked and want to sign up for Drumeo, but what’s offered for free is still quite generous, especially if you’re just getting started on the drums.

Training Available

We counted 54 lessons and teacher features total (there could be more), but you might be able to access even more by following the supporting documentation and included links.

Who Teaches The Course?

You might expect that the free resources would come from one teacher, but here, too, we find Free Drum Lessons to be quite generous.

You can access lessons and spotlight videos featuring the following instructors:

• Jared Falk
• Stephen Taylor (yes, the Stephen Taylor from StephensDrumShed.com)
• Todd Sucherman
• Antonio Sanchez
• Matt Garstka
• Larnell Lewis
• Kenny Aronoff
• Thomas Lang
• Tony Royster Jr.
• David Garibaldi
• Gavin Harrison
• Bernard Purdie
• John Blackwell
• Scott Pellegrom
• Carter Mclean
• Gabor Dornyei
• Benny Greb
• Thomas Pridgen
• Stanton Moore
• Rich Redmond
• Eric Moore
• Anika Niles
• Jim Riley
• Gergo Borlai
• Mark Kelso

YouTube

YouTube is bar none one of the best free solutions available, based on the ever-increasing amount of content available for drummers and musicians.

That doesn’t make it the best option overall, necessarily, because as we know, anyone can post to YouTube. And it’s not just drum content – there are videos on every topic imaginable.

You also need to dig for videos yourself. YouTube isn’t going to curate content for you.

Used the right way, YouTube can be a powerful supplement to your learning journey, though in most cases it probably won’t be your one stop shop.

Promise Of The Course

YouTube does not make any promises. It’s the second biggest search engine online, and the most popular video sharing site. Beyond that, it does not claim to help you achieve any result or offer any guarantees.

Content creators sometimes get strikes, are banned, or are even deleted completely from the platform. YouTube is the ultimately decision maker regarding content that lives on their site.

But you would be hard pressed to find another platform with so much content.

How Much Does YouTube Cost?

YouTube is free to use.

That said, YouTube does offer a subscription in the form of YouTube Premium, which costs $11.99 per month. It allows you to watch videos ad free and you can also download and save videos.

Some content creators also offer paid subscriptions.

The YouTube Experience

YouTube is what many would consider the “gold standard” for all video sharing sites. Its design is minimal, its layout is optimal, and finding content is generally just a few searches away.

This isn’t to say it has the best experience of any site out there. But most people are quite familiar with its use because it’s part of their daily routine.

Training Available

Virtually unlimited and increasing daily.

Who Teaches The Course?

We’d be here all day if we were to list all the teachers that are on YouTube.

But here are just a few you can easily find:

• Drumeo
• Drum Beats Online
• Adam Tuminaro
• Rob Brown
• Daily Drum Lesson
• MusicCollegeTV
• Mike Johnston
• Stephen Taylor
• And many others

Best Online Drum Lessons, Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for drum lessons online, then you should know that there is quite a bit of support available, even from established pros.

Some of the best, hands-on support is offered through paid sites, but that’s not to say free solutions are bad. In most cases, they are enough to get your started, or at enough help you get a feel for the drums before you begin engaging in lessons.

As we’ve already seen, some sites are better suited to certain types of players (all types of players, beginners, specialized players, etc.) over others. But that’s good news, because it means you can find a membership or course that’s well-matched to your exact needs.

If you’re looking for more resources, they are out there, but after a point, the sheer number of options can be overwhelming. Always look for a resource that can help you with your specific area of study or skill set you’re looking to develop, and most importantly, have fun learning!