A Sextuplet Exercise

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:

1. Single strokes starting with the Right Hand.
2. Paradiddle-diddles.
3. Double Paradiddles - notice that the ending 8th notes are L R, so that the next measure starts with the Left Hand.
4. Double strokes.
5. 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 same, no matter what the sticking.

Variations:

1. Add Bass Drum on the quarter notes and Hi-hat on 2 & 4.
2. Add Bass Drum on 1 & 3, and Hi-hat on 2 & 4.
3. Reverse the above 2 foot patterns.
4. On drum set, play each measure on a different drum.
5. Play the whole exercise as a crescendo, then as a decrescendo on the repeat.
6. Change the dynamic each time you repeat: play it all f, repeat it p, repeat it mf, etc…

Have fun!

~ MB