The following material is a presentation of some simple ideas I’ve developed for use with my private students. These exercises have been quite successful with my students, so I thought I’d pass them on to you. The simplicity of this material will allow you to begin developing a fuller sound when utilizing “The Big Three”— hi-hat, snare drum and bass drum—with a special focus on the snare drum. Having a solid snare sound on the accented notes is too often overlooked. Here is a snare drum technique which allows maximum snare drum projection with much less effort. Play a rim-shot (not a rim-click, which is an entirely different thing), while striking the drum dead-center with whatever end of the stick you prefer. At the same time, the shaft of the stick hits the rim between two lugs. This gives a lower sound than hitting the rim over a lug. When […]

December 1982 Issue