Drum Technique Tips
Select an item:Technique Tip#1:
The following triplet warmup pattern uses a double paradiddle in the first bar. Start with the right hand and practice 3 minutes. Then start with the left hand and practice 3 minutes. Follow the accents very carefully. Start slowly and build up your speed.
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Technique Tip #2:
Here is a nice triplet exercise to develop some coordination between your hands and feet while keeping a steady jazz pattern in the right hand. Example 1 is the actual pattern while Example 2 clearly shows which limb combination is playing on the four main pulses of the measure. Start slowly and build up your speed.
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Technique Tip #3:
Here are 4 basic warm-up exercises for your hands. Please follow the indicated sticking patterns precisely. Begin slowly and increase the speed only to where it is comfortable. If you have to keep on stopping, then back off and slow down.
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Technique Tip #4:
The following is a Linear Warm-Up Pattern. The second and third lines emphasize what your right hand is actually doing in line 1. The overall idea of this exercise is to focus on one hand, or the other, so that you can perform a complex sticking pattern with ease. Any complicated sticking pattern can be broken down in this manner and it will become easier to grasp what your hands are doing. You can approach similar patterns by researching what your right or left hand is doing. Either way, you will hear a pattern emerge from the straight sixteenth notes - usually your dominant hand. After hearing this pattern come out, try to even out the sound and maintain an even dynamic level between both hands so you are actually playing what is in line 1 ie: you are playing no accents.
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Technique Tip #5:
Use the following triplet patterns to develop your sense of time and coordination. Start slowly and build up your speed as you become comfortable with the patterns. Try various sticking patterns - use the suggested sticking patterns as a starting point.
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Technique Tip #6:
When practicing jazz patterns, study the technique of "feathering" the bass drum. When playing with this approach, you are hitting the beater against the bass drum head, but with very little force. You don't really hear the bass drum, but you feel the pulse that you are playing. With this style of playing, you support the ensemble you are performing with and at the same time, you don't step all over the bass player's lines. It is actually a difficult technique to develop consistently and takes a great deal of control with your bass drum foot. You must maintain control of the bass drum beater at all times. Again, this style of playing is more appropriate in a jazz setting rather than rock and roll or pop music.
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Technique Tip #7:
Reading a chart can seem intimidating to a young drumset player. In order to read drum charts, you must know the basics of reading music - types of notes and rests, time signatures, tempo markings, dynamics, etc. From there, you have to practice to develop the art of interpreting a drum chart. One of the most useful tools in developing your 'chart chops' is preparing yourself by looking over the whole chart and trying to identify any problem areas - styles of music, difficult rhythmic passages, odd repeat signs or other markings, finding out where to return on a D.S., strange phrasing (7 or 9 bar phrases versus the 'typical' 8 bar phrase), awkward page turns, etc. Keep in mind when you are reading a chart, constantly look ahead so an odd phrase or difficult page turn, etc. do not surprise you. Get in the habit of grouping segments of the chart together so you can concentrate on the more difficult areas. As an example, if you are playing straight time for 16 or 32 bars, use that opportunity to look ahead and set yourself up for the more difficult passages that may be right around the corner. Always be looking and thinking ahead.
Most drum charts are sketches of what is really intended for the set player to play. A good arranger knows better than to write out exactly what he wants performed. The beauty of set playing is your ability and opportunity to interpret a chart and create your own part. You are not locked into performing a certain piece of music the same way every time. That is one reason why a particular drummer may be called for a session over another drummer. They may both be capable, but may interpret the music differently. That is one reason why Steve Gadd and Dave Weckl, or Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich have never sounded the same.
As part of developing your interpretation chops, you must learn how to handle 'cues' that are written into drum charts, especially big band charts. Cues are usually small notes written on top of the drum staff to indicate what other sections of the band are playing. A great deal of the time, the cue will indicate the lead trumpet part, but many times it may also indicate a different instrument. The young, inexperienced drummer generally overplays all of the cues and mimics every cue written in the drum part. This leads to a rather boring and unsophisticated sound. The drummer must be selective in which cues to play, emphasizing only the musically relevant ones and using the others as a guide to what is happening in the chart. A cue at the end of a phrase may indicate to the drummer to set up the band with a big fill so the band can feel where they must enter. In mid-phrase, a cue may indicate that you should just slightly emphasize a section of the band with a small accent on your bass drum or cymbal. Only practice and experience will develop the tools necessary for you to decide what is appropriate in a given situation.
The above concepts are not the definitive answers in developing your reading chops. There are many different styles of playing and many ways of learning the art of the drumset, and the above information is only one approach that I have found works for me in a variety of musical settings.
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Technique Tip #8:
Try practicing double bass drum exercises even if you are only a single bass drum player. The exercises will develop the muscles in your hi-hat foot and increase your coordination between your feet and your hands. It's amazing how good some of the exercises sound in solo situations replacing bass drum 2 with the hi-hat.
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