Recommended practice songs for intermediate drummers: a collection of tracks to develop expressiveness and performance skills
Playing the drums gets really fun once you can hit a certain level, doesn’t it? Still, many people probably struggle—tripping up on songs with difficult phrases, or finding it hard to express groove and match the feel of the song even with simple patterns.
In this article, we’ll introduce recommended practice songs for those who’ve just moved beyond the beginner stage or are aiming to level up further.
We’ve picked plenty of recent popular tracks too, so feel free to use this as a guide when choosing your practice songs.
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Recommended practice songs for intermediate drummers: A collection to build expressiveness and performance skills (1–10)
libidosumika
Starting with an intro that feels like a Vocaloid track, this song features a whirlwind of shifting sections right from the top, making it an exceptionally busy piece for drummers.
In the second verse it suddenly switches to a bossa nova-like feel, then to something reminiscent of a Japanese-style anime song, and in the final chorus the groove changes every 4–8 bars, branching out in various directions—so make sure you don’t get left behind by the arrangement! From a technical performance standpoint, precise stick control is essential.
Despite the uptempo BPM in the 180s, the song frequently uses 16th-note beats and fills, and in the latter half of the second verse’s A section there’s a rapid-fire snare passage employing accent displacement.
Practice with a metronome so you can play both cleanly without losing the rhythm or dragging the tempo.
Bling-Bang-Bang-BornCreepy Nuts
It was produced as the theme song for the anime “Mashle: Magic and Muscles,” and its dance choreography became a major topic of conversation.
Many of you have probably seen people dancing to this track on social media, especially TikTok.
The song is by the hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts, and the original track doesn’t feature live drum performance.
However, if you can arrange popular tracks that use programmed beats and make them playable on drums yourself, you can proudly call yourself an intermediate drummer! Use the distinctive bass drum pattern—“boom, boom, boom-boom”—as the foundation, and build your groove to match the song.
There are several drum cover videos of this track on YouTube, so it might be helpful to use them as references.
Last NoteOmoinotake
It’s not a fast-paced or flashy type of song, but the more you listen, the more depth you’ll find—a drum track that really appeals to connoisseurs.
Up to the first chorus, the beat is based on closed rimshots, and in the chorus, a distinctive groove unfolds with the hi-hat playing a rhythm that mixes eighth notes and sixteenth notes.
This chorus beat may feel challenging for those who’ve mainly covered standard rock band songs like guitar rock or punk.
I think it’s necessary to take a step back from the usual rock-drum context, so it should make a great practice piece for anyone aiming to improve further.
Recommended practice songs for intermediate drummers: A collection to build expression and performance skills (11–20)
Bye-Bye to youUVERworld
A song by UVERworld featuring drum phrases that compellingly combine a sense of speed with weight.
While the BPM is around 180 and decidedly uptempo, the shifts in the beat create a dynamic ebb and flow that leaves a strong impression.
The section to focus on is the A verse.
Rather than a beat built around the right hand riding the hi-hat, it centers on the bass drum and snare, filling the gaps with toms and crash cymbals.
Many players may find it difficult to sight-read.
However, once you fully understand how the beat works, it should feel great to play.
Additionally, the track offers plenty of variety, such as a beat incorporating floor toms in the quieter section before the final chorus and the use of closed rimshots.
It’s a very fun song to master and play all the way through.
Leylinego!go!vanillas
This is a track that unfolds at a very relaxed tempo.
It does build a bit in the latter half, but up to around the middle there are no complex beats or flashy fills.
That said, the calmer and simpler a song is, the more any awkwardness in the drums stands out when playing as a band.
In the first half there are many moments where you need to lock in with the rhythms of the other instruments and vocals, calling for drumming that enhances the band’s overall appeal.
That means not only aligning your rhythm with the other members, but also adding dynamics and shaping the groove in line with the song’s development.
You may find that simply playing what’s written on the chart won’t cut it—an opportunity to experience a new kind of challenge in drumming.
magnet04 Limited Sazabys
The song opens with a stylish phrase using closed rimshots, expanding into an intro marked by a heavy, impactful beat.
After the intro it jumps straight into the chorus, exploding with an aggressive two-beat typical of melodious hardcore.
This two-beat is a standard groove that intermediate players should be able to play comfortably up to a certain tempo.
However, this track exceeds BPM 200, so keeping your right hand going in steady eighth notes might be tough.
As a workaround, if you skip the hi-hat on the downbeats of beats 2 and 4, the two-beat becomes much easier to play.
The song also features multiple fills that leverage hand-foot combinations, so practice them carefully to play those phrases cleanly without losing their shape.
Speed – Speedyutori
As the title suggests, this is a track defined by its sense of speed and a beat that shifts to match the arrangement.
It’s not just fast for the sake of it; for example, the A section incorporates ghost notes—details you’ll want to study closely and faithfully recreate.
From a drummer’s perspective, the biggest highlight is the roller-coaster-like ebb and flow that appears in the latter half of the song.
Coming out of the high-energy second chorus, it drops into a half-time feel for the quiet chorus, then gears up with rapid-fire snare hits and launches back into a driving final chorus.
When you power through that entire sequence, any drummer’s blood is bound to boil.
Make sure to rehearse repeatedly as a band so the tempo and groove don’t fall apart where the feel changes.