Percussionistic

It is very easy to learn the first basic polyrhythms (2:3 and 3:4), you can learn how they sound, and can get the feel for them. What is more important is being able to hear each one separately, and count each separately.
A great idea in Peter Magadini’s book “Polyrhythms – The Musician’s Guide“, is in addition to playing two rhythms on two surfaces, you can use it in musical instruments and play a chromatic scale or any sequence of notes against a singly note that is played in the base rhythm.
This is counter-intuitive, but playing a scale against a note makes it much more easier to hear the two rhythms at the same time. The reason is probably that we can easily hear the tune that is produced by the scale, especially that each part of that tune is a distinct note. When we are playing on two surfaces only, we are only hearing a sequence of hits, which are the same.
I use the same principle on the drum set. I play the base beat on the hi-hat foot, or base drum, and play the counter rhythm using the different toms. This also helps a lot in understanding all the parts of that particular polyrhythm, beginning, middle, end, or any particular part.
It’s also great to experiment with different sequences and surfaces. For example, playing 3 on the bass drum, and 4 on the toms you can play them in different ways:
side tom, low, high, snare
snare, high, low, side tom
OR snare, snare, tom, tom
It is obvious that the possibilities are endless.
This is actually a necessary skill on the drum set, because you need to be able to play those rhythms in different ways, utilizing different sounds, so it is kind of necessary to master this skill. This way it is more enjoyable, and clearer.