Why can't I play 2 rythems at the same time?

If I understand your question correctly, you are unable to play different rhythms in both of your hands at the same time.

Also, if you are asking the question here… then I presume that you do not have a music teacher that can explain to you how to do it.

There are many things to take into consideration, but the ULTIMATE one is to practice SLOW. Not just a “little” slow… but really, really STUPID slow. Practice makes perfect, and practice doesn’t care “what” you practice. If you try to constantly rush doing it and repeatedly mess up, then you are simply getting really good at repeatedly messing up. So, in the very first place, practice what you are trying to do as absolutely slow as you have to in order to play it correctly.

To play a rhythm correctly on the drums, you must first know how to properly hold the drum sticks. Proper hand positions will enable you to become a better player as you learn.

Next, you have to have a very good understanding of the value of beats and keep your beats even.. not speeding up or slowing down. Knowing how many counts each beat gets, and “how” to count them, will most likely be the largest underlying problem that you will have.

Counting out loud is an excellent help for beginners to be able to play contrary beats at the same time. Also, practice your hands seperately at first until you are certain that you can play what you need to with each hand correctly. Then, when you put the two hands together, anticipate that there will be some element of confusion because it is new to you… so, again, Go Extremely Slow when you first put it all together.

In learning to play the drums, there just isn’t any better substitute than a real teacher giving you private music lessons. The same with all instruments, of course. However, a lot of people are not in a position where they can either afford to take the lessons, or for some reason are unable to take private music lessons. So, I guess the next best thing for you to do is to do an internet search on “how to play the drums”… and check out some on line videos. Many are quite helpful. Also, check into any books that might be available to you on the subject. Also, check around and see if you can’t find someone around you locally that already plays drums and would be willing to give you a few pointers on how to do it.

When you are playing drums using two hands, and there is a different beat in each hand that has to be played together… then you have to learn how to count that out loud. You cannot view your hands as playing seperately. You have to visualize them as playing “together” and taking turns when they don’t both play at the same time.

Above all, however, insist that you practice as slowly as you have to in order to play the beats correctly. Students are most often suprised as to actually how slow that has to be in most cases. But the idea is to be able to play it “correctly” and repeatedly. The repetition of playing it slowly and correctly will eventually teach you to play very fast and very accurate.

If you try to go as slow as you can, and you still cannot play the beat correctly… then that should tell you that you don’t “understand” the beat well. You will then either have to write the beat out on paper for each hand (one above the other) and study it, or have someone further show you how to execute the beat.

In short, one of two things is going on. Either you are trying to play the beat too fast, or you simply don’t understand “how” to play the beat… and you will have to fix one or the other before you will be successful.