Chromatic scales are an essential skill to master for any keyboardist. Within an octave range, there are 12 notes. This makes sextuplets work nicely for building chromatic speed (6 + 6 = 12). In this particular exercise, your two “target” notes are F-natural and B-natural. Every sextuplet run begins on one of these two notes. If you can visualize these two aiming spots, your accuracy will greatly increase.
When first starting, practice slowly and ensure that you are striking the correct notes. As you gain more confidence in your accuracy, gradually begin to push the tempo. Once you get to the exercise up to a bright tempo, you may want to repeat the last two measures additional times for added endurance.
For the extra motivated, you can transpose the exercise and learn it in all 12 keys.
Accented Singles: One of the Best Things You Can Practice for Any Percussion Instrument
If you want to get the most bang for your buck in practice sessions, devote regular time to working on your accented singles. I think this exercise is extremely helpful for all percussionists, whether you play snare drum, keyboards, timpani, drum set, congas, or anything else.
Why is this exercise so great? Because singles are the foundation of everything. If you can’t play fast singles and control them with accents, then you’re going to have a hard time playing anything else very well. But if you take time and develop your singles, then everything else flows from that foundation.
This exercise has five sections; #1-4 repeat, and #5 adds a final endurance element. If you are a younger player, I would highly recommend playing just #1 over and over again (like for a month or two) until you have it sounding really good and up to a tempo of 100 bpm on the metronome. If you are already at that level, then the remaining sections provide some extra challenges with accent control and pure endurance.
At the end of the exercise, you will notice there is a “D.C.” marking—which, of course, means to go back to the very beginning and play the entire exercise again. On the second lap, follow the bottom sticking. The first time through the exercise, you will play everything with right hand lead, and the second time through, you will play everything with left hand lead. At faster tempos, this thing is a workout!
One important note about the accents: Play them! Few things sound worse than weak accents. Make a clear distinction between your accents and taps. For optimal speed, keep your taps low and close to the drum head. Take care to bring out every accent so that the rhythm is clear.
I believe it’s vitally important to practice this exercise on a single surface, such as a snare drum, because the up-and-down motion is a vital skill to master. Once you can play it well on one surface, you may want to practice it on other percussion instruments, such as multi-tenors, timpani, drum set, or keyboards. You can practice by keeping the taps on one surface and moving the accents to another surface. (You could also do the same with the rims on a snare drum.)
Finally, playing accented triplets is especially important because you have to alternate hands, and you end up working both hands equally. I would recommend adding this exercise (at least #1) to your daily practice routine. Over the course of a few weeks, you should see significant improvement on snare drum and all percussion instruments that you play.
This is a fun exercise for keyboard percussion that focuses on the “doubles rudiments” of four-mallet playing. I regularly use it with the high school where I teach. During marching season, our front ensemble uses it to work on double vertical strokes (measures 1-4) and double lateral strokes (measures 5-end).
Additional stroke types are used for transitions—single alternating strokes (ex: measure 5, beat 4) and triple lateral strokes (ex: measure 6, beat 4). These short occurrences frequently happen in actual musical situations, so it’s good practice for being able to switch quickly between stroke types.
Take care to achieve a full sound on every note. The double verticals should strike exactly together, and the double laterals should have a clear, consistent sound. Make a clear difference between the accented and non-accented notes at the end. Do not get sloppy on the non-accented notes. Keep the continuous 16th notes precisely in time.
When you can play this entire exercise with great consistency of sound, you will have a pretty solid grasp of the fundamental “doubles” strokes of four-mallet keyboard percussion. Enjoy!
This exercise is written for either a five-drum setup or a six-drum setup. While the six-drum setup obviously has more options, the fundamental skills covered are about the same.
As the title indicates, this exercise focuses on sweep patterns. A sweep is a double stroke split among two different drums. The “A.N.S.” in the title stands for Adjacent Sweeps, Non-Adjacent Sweeps, and Spock Sweeps.
Adjacent sweeps are sweeps between two drums right next to each other. On the basic quad setup, this would cover sweeps between drums 2 & 4, 1 & 2, and 1 & 3. For a six-drum setup, this would also include the two spock drums.
Non-adjacent sweeps are sweeps between two drums not next to each other. On the basic quad setup, this would cover sweeps between drums 1 & 4, 2 & 3, and 3 & 4. (On the six-drum version of this exercise, I went ahead and included drum 4 to the farthest spock drum and drum 3 to the farthest spock drum. Technically, these would fall under what I call “spock sweeps,” but the movements are similar to non-adjacent sweeps, so they work here. These sweeps are somewhat of a gray area.) These sweeps require a farther reach than adjacent sweeps, and they are more difficult to play fast. When playing this exercise, feel free to take this section slower if needed.
Spock sweeps require a different type of movement than adjacent or non-adjacent sweeps. As the name indicates, these cover any sweeps utilizing the spock drum(s). When sweeping between the spock drum and drums 1 or 2, you must use a push-pull motion. This is quite difficult to play fast. Feel free to adjust the tempo on this section as well.
When it comes to tempo, take each section as fast as you can comfortably play it. Of course, you should initially start slowly to focus on your technique and accuracy. Once you have a solid foundation, you can start speeding it up. As always, focus on accuracy and great sound quality. If you keep hitting rims, slow down a little bit and reassess your aiming spot.
The odd-metered measures are intended to provide a little rhythmic interest between the sweep patterns. Focus on playing the 16th notes with steady time.
If you can play through this exercise smoothly, you will have a pretty solid grasp on all of the sweep combinations!
This exercise takes a basic rock groove and goes through all 15 possible 16th note-based patterns on the bass drum. For beginning players, you should play each measure several times in a row until you have it down solidly. This will help you build a strong sense of 16th note timing on the bass drum. For more experienced players, this exercise will serve as good practice for changing bass patterns quickly.
The final line serves to give a satisfying conclusion to the exercise. The final three beats are written with slash notation. You can either give yourself a rest or create your own fills as you repeat the exercise.
To make this exercise groove, it’s essential to keep steady time. The final few measures are certainly the most difficult, so it’s important that you do not start the exercise too fast—or your foot will struggle to keep up at the end. Pay careful attention to keeping every note in alignment. Ultimately, each measure should groove, and you should have fun with it!
Originally written for xylophone, this fun little exercise comes from George Hamilton Green’s Advanced Instructor for Xylophone. This book is not as well-known as his more famous Instruction Course for Xylophone, but it is still quite good. (Both books are excellent and highly recommended.)
This particular exercise focuses on double stops (both hands playing at the same time), and the harmonic and rhythmic structure come from ragtime xylophone playing. The challenge of this exercise is to play a repeating two-note pattern with the left hand while playing a three-note pattern with the right hand. On the final two beats of measures 2 and 4, the right hand plays a four-note pattern that closely matches the movements of the left hand. The difficulty comes in transitioning back to the three-note pattern in measure 3 (and measure 1 on the repeat).
On the surface, the exercise looks simple, but it can provide an interesting coordinative challenge. Once you get it down, it’s really fun to play. As George Hamilton Green would advise, make sure you take it slowly at first. Keep your mallets close to the keyboard, make sure they both strike at exactly the same time, and make sure you are 100% accurate in all of your notes.
I’ve got a brand new snare exercise for you today. I came up with it several years ago just for fun. It has been in my “private collection” of exercises that I use sometimes for individual practice and one-on-one with students, but I’ve never shared it anywhere before now.
This exercise focuses on stutters—that is, isolated diddles. These have a cool “stuttered” sound (hence the name), but they are also really good for focusing on your diddle quality between each hand. The 16th note check patterns help to keep your timing in check. Be careful to keep each “stutter” in time. If you play this with other people, it will be a really helpful exercise for checking that your diddle interpretation is the same. The last measure is particularly tricky to play cleanly with others. Happy stuttering!
This entire week, we have been looking at different approaches to the “Shifting Paradiddles” exercise for various percussion instruments. We have previously looked at applications for snare drum, keyboard percussion, bass drum splits, and timpani. Our final instrument is the multi-tenors for marching percussion.
Before attempting this on tenors, it would be a good idea to review the snare drum exercise. This variation utilizes three drums. On the surface, it is pretty straight forward. The main thing that distinguishes this exercise from the snare drum version is that the accents are played as crossovers. The first two patterns—paradiddles and inverted paradiddles—are fairly simple to play as crossovers. However, the last two patterns—mills and alternating quads—are considerably more difficult.
As with all such patterns, make sure you bring out the accents, and keep the non-accents softer and closer to the drum. Contrast between accents and non-accents is of utmost importance in this exercise. Simply changing drums is not the same thing as an accent! It’s easy for tenor players to get lazy on accents and simply allow the momentum of moving from drum to drum to create a quasi-accent. When you play the accents with crossovers, make sure you are still bringing out the accents.
On the final four measures, play each pattern slowly at first until you feel comfortable with the quick movements involved in each crossover. On every double, be careful not to drop the second note. Strive for absolute smoothness in your 16th notes. Once you get everything down smoothly, every two measures should theoretically sound identical to the first two measures.
I hope you have enjoyed the exercises this week. Let us know what you think in the comments section. Do you like having an exercise that all sections can play together? Or would you prefer to see more specialized exercises for each instrument? Were these exercises a good challenge? Too easy? Too hard? Did you play through any of them with your percussion friends? Do you have any helpful tips to share?
Thank you for your feedback. We want to hear from you!
Throughout this week we have been looking at the “Shifting Paradiddles” exercise adapted for different percussion instruments. So far, we have looked at applications for snare drum, keyboard percussion, and bass drums.
Today’s variation for timpani may be the most challenging variation of them all due to its pedaling difficulties. The exercise utilizes three drums. It can be played along with the keyboard variation as it cycles through all 12 keys. As the key changes every two measures, the three drums are tuned to the root major triad.
The exercise falls into three sections, each ending with a quarter note…
Measures 1-8: The singles check pattern is on the highest drum, while the paradiddle variations are on the lowest two drums.
Measures 9-16: The singles check pattern is on the lowest drum, while the paradiddle variations are on the highest two drums.
Measures 17-24: The singles check pattern is on the middle drum, while the paradiddle variations are on the highest and lowest drums.
During the check pattern, you will have to pedal the other two drums—and during the paradiddle variations, you will have to pedal the other drum. Throughout each 8-measure section, each drum will progressively be tuned a half step higher. On the final measure, the quarter note should glissando smoothly into the next 8-measure section. For the final note of the exercise, you may want to utilize a downward gliss on repeats and use no gliss the final time through.
Of course, this exercise will be much easier if you have gauges on your timpani. If you do not, you can still achieve it with careful practice. Take it slowly and use a keyboard or pitch pipe to check yourself on every pitch change. Once you get all of the transitions down smoothly, this will be a pretty impressive exercise.
So far this week, we have had exercises for snare drum and keyboard percussion. They have all been variations on the “Shifting (P.I.M.A.) Paradiddles” exercise. Today we come to the bass drum variation. (It can be played by as few as two people or expanded to work for any size line.) The acronym in the title—P.I.M.A.—stands for:
Of course, a standard paradiddle has the sticking RLRR LRLL. An inverted paradiddle is like starting on the second note of a paradiddle: LRRL RLLR. A mill (think “single flammed mill” without the flams) is like starting on the third note: RRLR LLRL. Finally, an alternating quad is like starting on the fourth note: RLRL LRLR. (Of course, this final set is like a quadruple grouping of singles, simply alternating the starting note. Hence its name.)
In this variation, two players go back and forth between a basic 16th note check pattern and then split these different P.I.M.A. patterns. The first time through is all on the right hand. On the repeat, it should be played off the left hand. The best way to practice is with a metronome. Take it slowly, carefully subdivide the 16th notes, and focus on playing the rhythms smoothly with an absolutely steady pulse.
Tomorrow we will feature a variation on this exercise for timpani!
