Percussion Deconstruction™

As drummers/musicians, we spend years and years practicing in our basements/bedrooms/practice rooms. In fact, we spend the majority of our careers practicing somewhere. Our actual time performing live, on stage, is but a small percentage of what we do. So often when we finally do get to perform on a stage, many of us just want to cut loose, and play with total abandon and/or volume, because, we are like like a pent up race horse finally let out on the track. But when playing live, this is the time we  should , no, must have the most discipline! It's all fine and dandy to play whatever you want, however you want, in the privacy of your own rehearsal syudio. And that's good. That is a time to experiment, try out new ideas, and just let it rip sometimes. But being on stage is another beast entirely. Performing live requires a modicum  of self  discipline and editing. If every musician comes up on stage, especially in an improvising setting, with the idea th...

It's been a while since I posted a blog that featured an actual notated drum exercise, so I thought I would post something I've been using with my students. Here is a rather simple sextuplet exercise that is great for right & left hand balance, and is also a great warm up (play on pad, drum, hand drum, etc.). It's a repeating 5-bar exercise where each bar changes the sticking for the note pattern: Here's the quick breakdown for each measure: Single strokes starting with the Right Hand. Paradiddle-diddles. Double Paradiddles - notice that the ending 8th notes are L R, so that the next measure starts with the Left Hand. Double strokes. Single Paradiddles - notice that the last paradiddle is 2-16ths & 2-8ths. This leads to the repeat starting with the Left Hand. As drummers, we often tend to accent the 1st note of a given note group, like a sextuplet.  There are no accents here.   Play each note the same and make each measure sound the sa...