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.

Meticuloso

Meticuloso is a high school drumline audition étude, written to test the application of fundamentals in a musical context. While the vocabulary will provide the listener with an excellent cross-section of the student’s capabilities, the breadth of the noted tempo range allows students to interpret the piece however they will best shine. There should be no pressure to strive for speed: only an emphasis on maintaining commitment to the chosen tempo. Everyone—from your hot shot snares who want to prove they’re the best to your rookies just trying their best to honor the spaces—has their work cut out for them on this one. You gotta be meticulous… or… Meticuloso!

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.

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.

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.

Floppy Ernie

Floppy Ernie was written for the 2015 Weber State Indoor Percussion snare line in order to counter bad tendencies with technique on paradiddle-diddle figures: particularly, the tendency to achieve the second note of the doublestroke with a very weak bounce as you lift the lead hand for the next accent. Players with this tendency look "floppy" on paradiddle and paradiddle-diddle figures, and there is a lot of uncertainty in second-note timing on the doublestrokes. 

The doublestroke should consist of two powerful taps (even if the tempo precludes the use of two equivalent wrist turns) that occur completely before the upstroke for the accents. This exercise aims to establish the approach by starting with bucks (focus on a strong tap before the upstroke) before adding diddles that are more closed (requiring more fulcrum pressure) than the ones in the paradiddle-diddles. As the doublestrokes open up from the 16th-note diddles to the paradiddle-diddles, you should be able to apply more wrist turn to the doublestrokes, leading to a more deliberate rhythm, as well as the follow through to finish the doublestroke before worrying about upstroking to the next accent.

Hucka Dig Deep

Hucka Dig Deep is a fulcrum teaser that challenges your mastery of diddle speed control.  Varying diddle speeds as well as varying spaces available for upstrokes will expose your shortcomings in the complicated marriage of accent/tap fundamentals and doublestroke fundamentals that paradiddle rudiments demand.