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.

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.

Sloppy Jessee

Sloppy Jessee was written for the 2015 Weber State Indoor Percussion snare line, initially to work on two-accent paradiddles. The rudiment does not appear in music especially often, but this will still be a beneficial exercise to work on for the control over doublestroke quality and accent-tap contrast it can facilitate. The challenge added by the second accent is that each hand must upstroke quickly after playing a low doublestroke. This challenge is like what appears in paradiddle-diddles; however, paradiddle-diddles have a longer space between the doublestroke and the following accent. 

So a figure that looks fairly trivial on paper ends up looking (and sounding) sloppy in practice, because the demand for an open and legato second accent interferes with the demand for a low and well-timed doublestroke. Having the control to realize a quality doublestroke, an aggressive upstroke, and then a relaxed and legato accent (without doing unnecessary work or adding unnecessary tension to your grip) will pay off across a range of rudimental contexts.

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.

Tap-Couple-of-Diddles

Tap-Couple-of-Diddles takes the tap-five rudiment and pushes the doublestrokes around the beat in different ways. Doublestroke spacing remains the same throughout, while the initiations of the diddles are varied.

Lead-Dubs Chuggada

Lead-Dubs Chuggada is an exercise inspired by the 5/8 Chuggada which runs through three rudiments that all have [roughly] the same lead-hand breakdown: Swiss triplet, off-hand Swiss w/ kick, and hertas. The idea is that most of the brain-work happens with the off-hand, although there is slight variation in timing and stick height with the double-beats on the lead hand as well.

Ratama-Who?

Ratama-Who? juxtaposes different accent patterns of paradiddle-diddles with their ratamacue analogues. Have fun with it!