disConnect is a pattern for fitting 6-note combinations in order to draw attention to the nuances of finishing out the rudiment and starting it again. Paradiddle-diddles and double paradiddles especially need to be finished strong, but very often the quality and clarity of the final doublestroke are sacrificed for a focus on accents and the beginning of the next repetition of the rudiment. There are many possibilities for what you can fit into this one, but written variations included here are: Doubles, Double Paradiddles, Shirley Murphies, Flam 3–2–1, Flam Paradiddle-diddle, Paradiddle-diddle, Singles, Slurred Six-Stroke Roll, Slurred Ruff, and Swiss Army Triplet.
Ratamacoups with different feels
Ratmacoups With Different Feels consists of just one ratamacue-based breakdown that will be taken in a few different directions to challenge your hands, feet, eyes, ears, and brain. Although the ratamacue rudiments are rarely written in modern battery percussion music, these patterns will have tremendous relevance and demand for stick control, doublestroke, roll timing, and singlestroke fundamentals. Working on these patterns will pay dividends for your more broadly-applied drumming skills, while also giving you a more comprehensive understanding of one of the classic 26 essential rudiments.
The last two pages of this rudiment study consist of exercises with a variable written “mark time” component, much like the exercises you will find in the free book Mark Time Mark, also available on this website. In fact, I wrote this exercise before I wrote that book, and it was in writing this exercise that I got the idea for the book! But life happens, and it happens a lot, so I haven’t gotten around to re-visiting this rudiment study and fleshing out all the explanatory verbiage until now.
Bed 'o Taps fo' Better Taps
Bed ‘o Taps Fo’ Better Taps was inspired by an experience I had while walking through a warm-up lot somewhere in Utah, once upon a time. I heard a snare line playing some 8 and 25 on some beautifully-tuned Pearl snare drums, and it was just about the most amazing thing I had ever heard. Then they played some two-height rolls stuff, and it was like I was hearing a completely different group of performers. Obviously, two-height roll patterns tend to present more challenges than monotone rolls, but why? This pair of exercises seeks to explore this question.
These two exercises are intended to bridge the gap between roll fundamentals and accent-tap fundamentals. It is very common that players who have painstakingly developed sufficient stroke velocity and fulcrum control for playing quality doublestroke rolls will nevertheless find those habits affected by the addition of accents to create two-height figures, like paradiddles and tap rolls.
Stravagante
Stravagante is a high school drumline audition étude, written to test the application of fundamentals in a musical context. The rudimental content will provide the listener with an excellent cross-section of the student’s capabilities, and the breadth of the noted tempo range allows students to interpret the piece however they will best shine. At the same time, the frequency of flams and slurred drags may make this piece inappropriate for some students, and Meticuloso would be a more suitable audition étude.
Multi-Beat Cushion Strokes (& 14 Variations)
Multi-Beat Cushion Strokes is a two-height sticking pattern that combines the contrasting demands of multi-strokes—high velocity and high rebound—with those of cushion strokes: everything is exactly the same going into the drum, and after the stick hits the drum, it simply doesn’t rebound to the full height. Fourteen variations add different wrinkles to these demands by incorporating varying applications of fulcrum pressure.
Chocolate Mitchells 2021
Chocolate Mitchells 2021 includes various passages for rehearsing variations of paradiddle rudiments that cram an extra accent into the pattern.
Hiccups
Hiccups places accents before the attacks of triplet rolls, combining the challenge of cushioning to the tap height with the challenge of calling upon the correct application of fulcrum pressure to achieve the doublestroke spacing in the roll. This skill is especially pertinent to paradiddle rudiments, and two-accent paradiddle-diddle-diddles do make an appearance here.
Bapawappa
Bapawappa is a sequence of variations to a simple doublestroke pattern. Apart from the crushes, the lead hand stays basically constant throughout the exercise, although there may be subtle differences in timing and volume/height/velocity from variation to variation, depending on how you choose to interpret different rudiments. For additional practice, try feeling the doubles as ninelets (see the 4/4 Feel variation on page 2, with instructions on how to convert the tempo for your metronome).
Unified Fields
Unified Fields combines hand-to-hand independence patterns with unison doublestop patterns in a manner that pointedly tests your accent-tap and legato fundamentals.
∆Effort
∆Effort consists of a doublebeat/triplebeat pattern that can be treated as a multistroke, stick control, or timing exercise. Different variations check your timing, hand-to-hand consistency of motion, and sound quality.
Eleven Stroke
Eleven Stroke uses different breakdowns of the eleven stroke roll to test different tap roll fundamentals. Apart from the odd time signature, this exercise is deceptively simple; if you are being as picky as you ought to be, some of the patterns are actually quite tricky.
I pulled this exercise off the cutting room floor of the NC State Drumline exercise packet… I recently found a very early handwritten draft that included several exercises which, despite not making the cut, are actually quite versatile and worthy of study. This exercise was a complement to the series of “Tap Five,” “Six Stroke,” “Six Stroke Slurred,” and “Seven Stroke,” which use each roll rudiment as a means to explore roll fundamentals, beyond simply building an individual x-stroke roll rudiment.
Ten Stroke
Ten Stroke uses breakdowns of the ten stroke roll to test your application of fulcrum pressure when quick upstrokes are demanded of the rudimental content. Tap-fives require a repetitious application of fulcrum pressure and rapid upstrokes; this exercise breaks up the monotony by varying the demands (taps, doubles, accents) that surround the upstrokes and downstrokes.
I pulled this exercise off the cutting room floor of the NC State Drumline exercise packet… I recently found a very early handwritten draft that included several exercises which, despite not making the cut, are actually quite versatile and worthy of study. This exercise was a complement to the series of “Tap Five,” “Six Stroke,” “Six Stroke Slurred,” and “Seven Stroke,” which use each roll rudiment as a means to explore roll fundamentals, beyond simply building an individual x-stroke roll rudiment.
Invert Motion
Invert Motion works on inverted flam taps—with an optional cheese invert variation—by contextualizing the rudiment with other rudiments that have the same one-handed breakdown: the “invert motion” (two taps followed by a quick upstroke to an accented third note). Pataflaflas and same-handed flam paradiddles have the same one-handed breakdown, although the precise timing of the three notes will vary with the taps’ role as either grace notes or proper taps (within the rhythmic grid).
I pulled this exercise off the cutting room floor of the NC State Drumline exercise packet… I recently found a very early handwritten draft that included several exercises which, despite not making the cut, are actually quite versatile and worthy of study. This exercise was ultimately thrown out in favour of one that focuses more on filling in the breakdowns of the inverted flam tap rudiment; however, the idea for juxtaposing rudiments that have the same one-handed breakdown as each other formed the basis of the Off-Hand Control chapter in the Rudiment Control packet.
Flam Taps '09
Flam Taps ‘09 was incorporated into a larger ensemble warm-up performed by the NC State Drumline, but it is a neat little exercise on its own. It is built like a straightforward flam-taps builder, but it starts with the nonlead hand in order to create a driving upbeat feel that gives the hugadigs (three-note series on the same hand) a sense of urgency and a need for precision.
Drag Control
Drag Control runs through some different interpretations of the tap drag and flam drag rudiments to build mastery over doublestroke attacks and spacings. The main idea is that “if you can do it wrong, then you can do it right.” By exploring some extremes of how a rhythm can be incorrect, you learn to hear and feel the difference between correct and incorrect attacks and spacings.
I pulled this exercise off the cutting room floor of the NC State Drumline exercise packet… I recently found a very early handwritten draft that included several exercises which, despite not making the cut, are actually quite versatile and worthy of study. This exercises was probably not included because the Tap Five builder covers the same ideas and then some. The slurred tap drags in measure 2 are not intuitively easy to read, so it was easy enough to work on different tap drag variations by rote, and leave the Tap Five builder as the thing people needed to read, prepare, and use to develop fulcrum awareness. For more rudimental interp exercises like this, check out Rudiment Control.
Eighteen on a Hand (Paradiddle-diddle Builder)
Eighteen on a Hand (Paradiddle-diddle Builder) is a twist on the traditional 8 on a Hand. By adding a huckadig (one-handed breakdown of a paradiddle-diddle) to the measure of legatos, this exercise opens the door to many great variations for combining and refining doublestroke and accent-tap fundamentals, in service of building excellent paradiddle-diddles. It is a simple concept, but there is a lot that you can do with it.
Waltz
Odd Singles
Odd Singles consists of variations to the classic 7/8 Singles exercise. The variations change the beat-long into into something subtly slower or faster than the sixteenth-note triplets that set it up.
We Got 2 Kinds of Threes
We Got 2 Kinds of Threes compares the hugadig rudiment (one-handed breakdown of a flam-tap) with the triplebeat rudiment (where all three strokes are attacked in the same way). The goal is to challenge your application of fulcrum/finger assistance and efficient use of wrist turn and rebound. Confronting the dramatic contrasts that manifest in the pairing of these two approaches will help you to build better habits for the application of good fundamentals.
Pinch Perfect
Pinch Perfect requires the consistent application of a given amount of fulcrum pressure and finger assistance to create strong and consistently-timed doublestrokes. Variations then alter the release of the roll so that the fulcrum pressure and finger assistance demands are not uniform throughout 100% of the exercise.
