How to Play Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on Drums

In this video, we teach you how to play Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by breaking it down and explaining each part.

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Table of Contents:
We make it easy to learn how to play this song on the drums! Click on the specific time stamps below to skip straight to the part of the lesson that you want!

PART 1 Quick run through of what we will be teaching for this drum lesson...
0:24 - We play through what the beginning drum pattern is for the Smells Like Teen Spirit intro

PART 2 Breaking down "Smells Like Teen Spirit...
0:48 - In the beginning of the song, we have 4 measures
0:56 - Let's count them together
1:03 - At the very beginning of the 4th measure is when the drum fill comes in
1:10 - The fill is going to be a flam on the snare drum.
How to play a flam - Typically you create a flam by raising your right drum stick higher than your left drum stick so that by the time they come down there is a slight delay with your right stick. However, there are also drummers that raise both sticks at the same time to the same height and hit the drum at slightly different times. Note: If you are a drum line drummer, you would only raise 1 drum stick and create the flam with a single drum stick. All 3 ways are correct and you can choose whichever is easiest for you and more your style
1:36 - We run through what the fill is going to be We break down the fill slowly for left-handed drummers. It is broken down into 4 components. 1) Flam 2) Bass 3) High hat 4) Bass. This same sequence repeats.
1:46 - If you are a right-handed drummer you would play the sequence this way
2:10 - You are going to repeat this sequence and play the snare drum 4 times. This is how you will know that you are done playing this part.
2:16 - After the 4th snare, you are going to 1) Bass 2) Bass + High hat
2:30 - We play the whole part again slowly putting it all together
2:38 - Putting it all together at full-speed with music

Part 3 The next beat we are going to play as part of the song...
2:54 - We play the 8 measure pattern without the music
Note: every measure of the song will have a crash and this pattern will be played 8 times for 8 measures
3:15 - We breakdown the 1st measure. It can be broken down into 3 parts 1) Bass + Crash 2) Bass 3) Snare
3:35 - Immediately after the snare, another pattern begins.
4:10 - To break down this next pattern, we use some drumming rudiments to play this part
4:27 - We use a paradiddle where we play 4 beats in Right-Left-Right-Right
5:04 - After the paradiddle you play Snare + High hat
5:13 - Break this part down slowly

5:25 - Playing it all with music at full speed
5:54 - On the last measure we end with a
6:31 - If the double bass is causing some issues, you can water it down and do this instead until you're more comfortable

PART 4 Playing the entire lesson from beginning to end with music
7:00 - Entire drum lesson put together with music at full speed