These two timing exercises are quite helpful for all percussionists, regardless of your specific area of specialty.  They seem simple at first, but they really great exercises for getting an ensemble to internalize the pulse together.  They are also useful exercises for individual practice (with a metronome, of course!).  They will help you realize how accurate or inaccurate your internal beat subdivisions are.  This becomes especially evident at extremely slow and extremely fast tempos.

I should state upfront that I did not write these two exercises, but I like them, and I wanted to share them here.  I helped teach at a high school drum line camp a couple of years ago, and Luke Holt was the front ensemble technician.  He brought out these exercises during the full drum line rehearsal (I’m not sure if they were original with him, but they’re worth passing along).  With all of the space created by the rests, it was a challenge for the entire group to play every note perfectly together.

I have since used these exercises at times to help my percussion group in the same way.  They are particularly good for bass lines, since each individual player often has isolated rhythms like this.

For individual practice, I highly recommend using a metronome with the eighth note subdivision turned on.  You will probably be surprised how easily you tend to rush or drag certain notes in the measure.  I would recommend practicing these exercises every so often at slow tempos (about 40-60 bpm or slower) and fast tempos (160 bpm or faster).  If you can play these two exercises perfectly along the entire tempo spectrum, you can be pretty confident in your sense of eighth note pulse.