C.A.T.S. — 2021

C.A.T.S. (Cloned Accent-Tap Singles) — 2021 is an accent-tap and singlestrokes warm-up that employs doublestops in order to match stick motions between the hands before splitting the hands up into the singlestroke patterns. This is the same idea behind Singles a la Clone from page 5 of Twelve Eight-Bar Exercises in 12/8 to Stave off Cabin Fever (With Play-Along Practice Recordings) as well as Mantra #7 Singlestroke Rolls / Consilience from page 5 of Mantras For Rudimental Snare Drum, now available in a hip ensemble warm-up that would likely suit many collegiate and independent drumlines very well!

The concept is further described in the aforementioned Cabin Fever book:

The lead-hand breakdowns of accented singlestroke rolls and singlestroke tap rolls will generally have different tendencies. A downstroke followed by taps tends to feel different than a bunch of taps followed by an upstroke. This exercise aims to unify your approach to upstrokes/downstrokes within the context of the different accented singlestroke rudiments. The doublestops with only one hand accented at a time will expose your tendencies on upstrokes and buck motions, allowing you to more smoothly transition into singlestroke rolls and singlestroke tap rolls. Keep it smooth, people. This is another great one to try with brushes, drum set sticks, and with a towel on your drum or pad.

Edit 15 December 2021: Fixed a typo in the last measure of the snare part.

Check Me

Check Me is a roll builder that works especially hard on the standard check breakdown of 7-stroke rolls appearing before and after eighth notes. In my own practice and teaching, honestly, I never run this breakdown. It feels weird to play 8th-note triplets offset by an eighth note, and the more impactful breakdowns of upbeat triplet rolls are the ones that emphasize the second note of the diddle appearing on the upbeat (or downbeat).

In other words, I find it easier to understand upbeat triplet rolls by hearing all of the sextuplets and checking the appropriate ones against the upbeat and downbeat. Additionally, being able to hear all of the sextuplets and check the appropriate ones against the upbeat and downbeat is an invaluable skill for playing all kinds of triplet rolls (even the most normallest triplet rolls in the world). So when my students encounter upbeat/offset triplet rolls, I use it as an opportunity to open their ears and their minds to the reality of rolls as “rhythms with a certain sticking”… rather than leaning on the “check into roll” paradigm when the check is probably the least solid thing in the student’s head.

Having said all that, I do not have the hubris it would take to say that it is worthless to rehearse this check pattern—I simply choose to do something else that is already important otherwise and seems to achieve the same end result. In fact, by giving this check pattern a chance, I came up with this kinda hip sounding warm-up. And everything I’ve said above about hearing sextuplets applies perfectly to the second half of the piece anyway, so now you have the whole package!

Edit 14 November 2021: I’ve added some variations to this piece: first, to relate the roll patterns to the 8th-note breakdown, so now you truly do get the whole package; and second, to include up-beat triplet roll figures that do not switch hands, since those appear at least as frequently in rudimental music as ones that do.

Flam Placements

Flam Placements drills the physical demands of playing flam accents (the dut-digga-dut one handed breakdown: R-rrr-R-rrr-), but instead of spending a bunch of time adding various pieces of the rudiment to this one handed breakdown, you will be moving an accent around within this pattern in order to build a command over grace-note placement. This change in priorities elevates the “dut digga dut”-style exercise into something that more effectively builds grace-note control and encourages the correct application of multiple heights.

The first pattern (meas. 1 & 5) works the common “taps before a flam” motif, while also hitting the one-handed breakdown of flam accents. The second pattern (meas. 2 & 6) works on the tap-flam-tap motif that happens within flam accents. The third pattern (meas. 3 & 7) works the common “taps after a flam” motif, while also hitting the one-handed breakdown of flam accents. You are challenged to perform a consistent one-handed breakdown while subtly changing the timing of the taps in order to correctly assign each of the three low strokes an appropriate role as a true tap or as the grace note of a flam. This additional demand will force you to improve your awareness of grace-note timing, and the extra attention you have to pay to these taps will force you to improve your height definition.

For these reasons, I will go out on a limb and say that these modifications make this “flam accent heights” exercise an even better flam accent heights exercise and a more broadly useful flams builder. For being pretty hip, pretty basic, but also unique and immensely useful, I am especially proud of this warm-up.

21st Century Sanford Man

21st Century Sanford Man (2021) is a truly fundamental way to work on double beats and to connect double beat fundamentals to the doublestroke roll. Segments of the exercise must be performed with a “maximum rebound” (or “pause at the up”) approach, whereby the performers focus on allowing every stroke to return to the attack height and simply stay there before the next attack. This extreme approach to emphasizing rebound allows performers to work through their issues in maximizing both rebound and velocity (sound production) in both double beat and doublestroke roll contexts.

Groovy Grandmas

Groovy Grandmas (2021) is a paradiddles warm-up that really is all about the paradiddles. The long series of monotone taps with paradiddle sticking should really get you focused on consistency and quickness of wrist turn at the low dynamic. The accents that create the grooves, then, must rise out of the monolithic sound created by the ensemble being locked in completely to the taps.

Syncoparadiddles

Syncoparadiddles (2021) is a paradiddles warm-up that employs a repeating syncopated motif to cast paradiddles in various revealing situations to help you better apply great fundamentals to paradiddles. The beginning is all about understanding the application of rebound and maximising the efficient use of rebound while also playing aggressively into the drum. Measures 5–8 are all about consistently even taps before the accents are added in the latter half of the exercise.

Vorticity

Vorticity (2021) (∇ x v) is an ensemble chop-out exercise that hits lots of big legatos, some doublestrokes, some rolls (and even some flam accents, snares!), and some more big legatos, so your line can jam out, get a work out, and stretch out, all in one warm-up. This piece would be suitable for a committed high school or university drumline, and I think the vibe, the vocabulary, and the vivacity of the music would make this a hit in any parking lot or pre-show warm-up.

The title is an obvious nod to the Bluecoats warm-up that inspired the person who asked me to write something like this to ask me to write something like this.

Kicked in the Grace

Kicked in the Grace (2007) is a four-measure flam étude that employs a myriad of grace-note contexts: flam-accents, flam-taps, swiss triplets, inverted flam-taps, etc. The scope is broadened by adding drags to produce different variations.

In a line setting, the variations can be chained together as appropriate. Additionally, the snare and quad parts, by ending on an eighth note upbeat, allow "off the left" variations to be seamlessly added to the sequence.

Seven 8&25

Played ad nauseam by the 2011 Athens Drive winter line, Seven 8&25 (2011) is an ensemble warm-up built from a seven-stroke rolls exercise and the ever-famous 8&25. I couldn't help but quote the end of my high school's triplet diddles exercise (by Will Goodyear)... it's hip.

The first half of the piece emphasizes the attacks of roll figures; the first triplet diddle is either on a downbeat or an eighth note upbeat. The second half emphasizes quality and endurance... mostly endurance, but we all love 8&25, right?

Dub/Huk

I inflicted Dub/Huk (2010) on the Athens Drive HS Drumline in order to help work on doublestrokes: specifically, second note quality in doublestroke rolls, and sixteenth-note consistency (timing and quality) for paradiddle figures.

The first half of the piece builds the doublestroke roll and inverted roll from their one-handed breakdowns. I like working on inverted rolls because the second note of the doublestroke is placed on the eighth note partials, rather than sixteenth-note upbeat partials; i.e. deficiencies in timing and quality of those notes will be more obvious to the ear and mind, allowing these deficiencies to be corrected.

The second half works on a syncopated hucka-dig (one-handed breakdown of a paradiddle-diddle) pattern and then fills it in to the corresponding paradiddle figure. Ensemble timing is tricky for this part; accents on the fourth sixteenth note partial will tend to be late, while those on the upbeat eighth notes will tend to be early. This warm-up is a huge bag of mess without dedicated practice with a metronome.

The bass drum part is such that all the written notes could be played as a single unison part.

Slurred Ruff

Slurred Ruff (2010) was used by the NC State and Athens Drive HS drumlines to work on tap sound quality between doublestrokes and single beats. Whether your doublestrokes tend to overpower the single beats, or vice versa, your ears will pick up on it. This warm-up doesn't actually have straight paradiddles in it, but the skills it hits are most related to the other paradiddles warm-ups. 

Timing-wise, one tendency seems to be (I don't know why; it's just what I've seen) to tighten up the ruffs on the all-tap bars: i.e. to play something like 1 &a2 &a3 &a4 &a on the single-height bars. A constant doublestroke motion on one hand must be maintained, whether the other hand executes a "buck" motion, or a rebounded "8 on a Hand" motion.

The bass drum part is such that all the written notes could be played as a single unison part.

Flams '09

Flams '09 (2009) was the flams warmup of the 2009 NC State Drumline. It covers flam accents, flam-taps, and (for the snares) inverted flam taps. There are some flam drags at the end too, so good luck with those. I think this is a good piece for a university drumline, since the upper battery works on the main flam demands that a college line should expect to encounter, while the bass line gets a bit more work on doublestrokes. The snares are required to play inverted flam taps, while the quads work on the upstroke motion in the context of the skank/mute patterns that are often encountered in street beats and stadium grooves.

If I were to use this piece today, I would change the first two bars to be double-stops in the snare and quad parts, since that forces performers to work on the quadruple-stroke that shows up in the written flam pattern.

Swingerbeat

Swingerbeat (2008) highlights three different contexts for doublestrokes: the second note rebounding to re-attack at the same height as the first stroke, the second note being downstroked to re-attack at the tap height, and the second note being upstroked to re-attack at the accent height.

While there really isn't any emphasis on paradiddle figures, the hucka-dig motion is employed heavily.

The last bar of the piece is very much like the tap-off. In a line setting, it would probably work to just repeat the warm-up as if the last bar is the tap off (i.e. add the pickup from the last 24th-note of bar 1 to the final bar, and resume at bar 2).

Bread & Butter: Dubs

Bread and Butter: Dubs (2007) is a stock-type double beat exercise that would be well-suited to a high school drumline that is ready to do their homework. Take it slow (slower than the 112 BPM marked… try 80 BPM!) to work on the rhythms, and hey, it turns out that working on doubles that slowly is also very beneficial! It comes from the Bread and Butter packet from the original FatMattDrums website, and I think it has aged well enough to deserve new life here.

Edit 14 November 2021: The link to the pdf was broken, and I have fixed it.

Bread & Butter: Paradiddles

Bread & Butter: Paradiddles (2007) was part of the Bread and Butter warm-up packet from the old FatMattDrums, and I think it has aged well enough to deserve new life here. It begins with a simple paradiddle builder then works its way into some mixed-meter patterns with various degrees of grooviness. Mark time or don't... or just halt when things get tricky. Either way, this one should be a lot of fun!

Diddle Me Timbers

Diddle Me Timbers (2007) is a paradiddles warm-up with a little more variety than Paradiddle Flow. The double paradiddle rudiment makes an appearance here as well, so don't misread them as paradiddle-diddles.

The bass drum part is such that all the notes with stickings could be played as a single unison part, leaving the notes without written stickings as a split. The bass line is then challenged as much as the snares or quads to perform paradiddle-related rudimental demands.