Double Tap

I wrote Double Tap (2010) on one fine evening when I got stuck on NC State's campus during a snowstorm. They had a showing of Zombieland for students, so after fleshing out this warm-up in the dorms with a couple buddies, it was pretty obvious what I should call it.

It's styled after the very "stock"-sounding double beat warm-ups that generally centre on some sanford-esque pattern, but I wanted to incorporate different hand speeds, as well as an emphasis on the eighth-note pulse within a triplet roll.

While this piece was never used and would prove difficult for a line of typical skill, it is nonetheless worth taking a look at.

Paradiddle Flow

Paradiddle Flow (2009) is a simple warm-up that emphasizes 16th-note timing consistency within different stickings (puh-duh-duh, paradiddle, paradiddle-diddle, slurred six-stroke roll). Practice at a single height (i.e. all taps) will build comfort with the different stickings. Practice at different accent heights will build comfort with the downstrokes involved.

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.

High Five (Paradiddles)

High Five (2009) is an all-around doublestroke étude; double-beats, paradiddles, and rolls (slurred and straight) must be mastered in order to pull this one off. This piece is based on an onfield warm-up I wrote with the same name. 

The way it is constructed, isolatation and repetition of individual measures will be a useful practice tool in putting together this warm-up. This piece was first performed by the 2009 NC State Drumline.

This one also has double paradiddles, so don't misread the stickings... I know people don't write those too often anymore. 

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

Matt A-B

Matt A-B (2010) is a variation on the A/B/C Sanford-type double beat exercise, arranged for full battery. I used this with the 2009-2010 Athens Drive HS Indoor Drumline to cover the demands of a stick control exercise, a paradiddle exercise, and a double-beat exercise, all in one piece that was constructed piecemeal from other parts of their audition packet (e.g., 8-on-a-hand bass splits). It turned out really well for its simplicity.

Accent Tap

Accent Tap (2008) is a comprehensive two-height warm-up that covers buck figures, accent-tap contexts, singlestroke figures, and paradiddle figures. It was written with the goal of being part of the NCSU Drumline warm-up repertoire, but John wrote an on-field warm-up with more brevity and focus. This, however, is a good long warm-up to work on accents and taps, with some groovy interludes. It's based on Groovement Movement from the original FatMattDrums, and I think that any level of drumline could find some useful portions to excerpt from it.

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.