The longer I play the drums, the more I appreciate and value the time I can spend on only a snare or pad. Let’s dive into a few concepts to improve our overall technique. Here’s the rhythm we’ll be interpreting throughout this lesson.
While playing constant 16th notes, read the notes in Exercise 1 as accents, and double all of the notes between each accent, as notated in Exercise 2. Practicing this exercise with doubles an alternating sticking will help you develop the flow between 16th and 32nd notes, and it will strengthen your sense of time.
Next try playing the 16th-note subdivision and doubling each note of the written rhythm from Exercise 1.
If you flam the diddles from Exercise 4, you’re playing a hybrid rudiment called a “cheese.”
Now we’ll play an accented double-stroke roll. Play the rhythms from Exercise 1 by accenting both notes of a diddle, and double each of the remaining 16th notes to create a long roll. Make sure to maintain a substantial dynamic difference between the accented and unaccented notes.
This time play accented buzz strokes on each note of the written rhythm from Exercise 1 while filling in the remaining 16ths with alternating single strokes.
One of my favorite techniques is to flam a buzz stroke. Enjoy!
Libor Hadrava is the author of the book In-Depth Rhythm Studies: Advanced Metronome Functions. He also plays with Boston metal band Nascent and is an endorsing artist for Evans, Vater, Dream, Pearl, and Ultimate Ears. For more info, visit liborhadrava.com.
