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.
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.
Stutter Tap Fives
Stutter Tap-Fives challenges you to control the placement of doublestrokes in tap-five figures. The main variation plays with the space around the doublestroke. It is very tricky to play a quality doublestroke that doesn’t follow from something and connect to something else. It should not be, but it is, so use it as an excuse to get very picky about how you articulate doublestrokes! If shuffling these diddles around the rhythmic grid gets boring, the modulation variations challenge you to change doublestroke placement and speed.
The included buzz/crush variations allow you to work on many of the same challenges as the main variations—rhythmic precision and the targeted application of fulcrum pressure—without having to worry about second note placement on the doublestrokes.
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).
∆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.
Movin' Mills
Movin’ Mills is a simply-created grid that makes for a lot of weirdness with the hands. Get picky about your grace note placement and get comfortable with the stickings… then speed things up and try to keep everything nice and relaxed. I dare you!
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.
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.
Check Yo'Self
Check Yo’Self (Paradiddle-Diddle exercise) uses simple diddle figures to prepare your ears to listen for inconsistencies in paradiddles and paradiddle-diddles. It’s a very simple exercise, but it should make your bad habits really apparent. It’s all right hand lead, so be sure to rehearse this one off the left.
Nine on a Hand (Flam Drag Builder)
Nine on a Hand (Flam Drag Builder) is similar to Eighteen on a Hand, but it focuses on the distinction between taps and grace notes while drawing your attention to different features of the flam drag rudiment. Ideally, grace notes are played from the tacet height in order to create the best sounding flams possible; i.e., the grace note does not speak as powerfully as the taps or diddles. This approach is the flams equivalent of “doublestrokes consist of two equal attacks.” While the ideal will not always be feasible, understanding it and being able to apply it where it is reasonably achievable will improve your execution across the range of rudimental contexts.
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
Place The Grace 2
Place The Grace 2 is a flams builder that challenges you to keep a consistent pulse on one hand while the other hand plays isolated taps that either serve to fill in the rhythm, to create true flams, or to create flat flams.
Place The Grace 1
Place The Grace 1 is a flams builder that challenges you to experiment with grace-note placement by starting with a rhythmic grid, altering the timing of the rhythmic grid, transitioning to true flams, tightening to flat flams, and ultimately settling on a true flam interpretation.
Chugga-Chugga-Wuggas
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.
Herta Henry
Herta Henry is a fun singlestroke and herta étude that is a lot more challenging than it looks. You will have to mind what I call the “herta paradox”: hertas consist simply of legatos on one hand and doubles on the other hand, but putting them together in the herta rhythm mysteriously creates a tendency to unnecessarily tense up on both figures in order to achieve correct timing. The skeleton variation will give you a benchmark of how the as-written exercise should feel if you are truly relaxed.
Nice Kicks
Nice Kicks is a diddle interp exercise that is primarily focused on rolls that put an accent before their release. Rehearsing different roll interpretations is an excellent practice for building confidence and consistency in timing, as well as greater fulcrum control. Apart form this benefit, the figures in this exercse are interesting rudimental fare in their own right—fun to include in musical passages to create a looser rhythmic feel where appropriate.
Smoooves
Smoooves is a simple pattern for fitting five-note rudiments into a juxtaposition between sixteenth notes and fivelets. Included are some example rudiments that are well-suited t this pattern, as well as some accent variations to play around with. Despite all the effort changes involved, keep it smooth!
