Multi-Tenors Exercise: Triplet Around Patterns

December 15, 2016December 15, 2016 James Christian

*Click on the image to enlarge or click here to download in PDF format.*

This exercise is a lot of fun to play. It utilizes only four drums, so it can be played on quad-toms, quint-toms, or sex-toms. You especially need two things to play this exercise well:

Endurance. As a constant barrage of single strokes, you have to dig deep and keep pushing to the end in order to play this exercise without stopping or slowing down.
Fluidity of Movement. Practically every combination of drums is covered here without using crossovers or spock drums. It’s important that you take each pattern slowly until you have the spatial memory to know where you’re going from phrase to phrase. Focus on striking in the proper playing zones and maintaining consistent note spacing.

For added endurance and accuracy practice, play this exercise through 10 times, 20 times, etc. Keep building new goals, and push yourself to get to the next level.

Two Exercises for Any Percussion Instrument: 8th Note Timing

December 12, 2016December 12, 2016 James Christian

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.

Multi-Tenors Exercise: A.N.S. Sweeps

December 1, 2016November 27, 2016 James Christian

Five-Drum Version

Six-Drum Version

To view the exercise, click on the images to enlarge. To download in PDF format, click here for the five-drum version, and click here for the six-drum version.

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!

Multi-Tenors Exercise: Shifting Paradiddles

November 25, 2016November 25, 2016 James Christian

To view the exercise, click on the image to enlarge or click here to download in PDF format.

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?

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