In deepwater drilling, there are two major components of drilling tools that are subjected to vibration, namely the marine riser and the drilling pipe. Analyses of vibration in the marine riser and drill pipes are two topical areas that have individually received considerable attention by researchers in the past. For the marine riser, the focus was on the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) in different shear and flow regime. The focus on the drill pipes was on different vibratory modes and resonance. While these two subjects are interrelated, they have been little attempt to investigate them together as an assembly. The present paper investigated the coupling of the marine riser VIV to the drill pipe vibration when the drill bit penetrated the wellbore using coupled approach. It was found that the lateral displacement of drill pipe is most significant when the riser oscillates at lower frequency. Riser oscillation is most damaging to the drill pipe when the later also rotates at low RPM. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.