Tag: snare drum exercises

2 Minute Snare Drum Warm Up

It feels like we’ve all moved on with out lives after Nirvana, and then all of a sudden some kid reminds us what it used to be like listening to In Bloom, by slaying the drums along to the song and then we stick on the albums again! Let us not ever move on too far. Lest us forget.

Coincidentally (not!), I wrote this snare drum warm up this morning for my drum group. We went through it today without reading it but soon it will be a reading exercise. It has most of the basics needed for levels spanning grade 1-5. Lots of different subdivisions in here to practice. You could break up the warm up and just work on one line, or 4 bars, or 1 section at a time.

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Breakfast Rhythms – Learning to read and play drum fills and snare rhythms

Breakfast rhythms are great for all primary school ages, and they can be fun for high school and adult ages too to help with the initial barrier of learning the rhythms. By saying the rhythm and seeing it at the same time, you will be associating the sound with how it looks on paper, so eventually you will know that two 16th notes and an 8th note sounds like the word “sausages”, so in the future you may not think of the word sausages but you will know how the rhythm goes instantly when you see them combined on the sheet music.

This sheet is an accompaniment for a book I have made called “First Drum Book – Easy Reading Beats & Fills” (it’s a premium download). This page is not in the book yet but I’m currently going through the book again to improve parts of it. If you download the book now, you’ll get a notification to download the latest version for free when it’s ready.

This sheet will also be very helpful for any of the free snare drum exercises or snare drum sheet music I have posted and also for any of the beats and fills exercises, for help with reading the drum fills.

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Paradiddle Exercises Moving Accents To Toms and Cymbals

The Paradiddle. The most popular drum rudiment.

So dramatic! Could be the flam actually.

I’ll never look at the paradiddle in the same way, after a student asked a sporadic question “who created the paradiddle?”. I replied quickly with “Jerry Paraddidle”. After some chuckles at the name and then the rest of the lesson passing, I had to admit at the end that it was a joke! I still don’t know who did, but I’m sure there is info out there.

But is the paradiddle boring?

Well yes and no. It’s how you look at it really. Practicing paradiddles can be boring if you focus on just repeating RLRRLRLL for 10 minutes with a metronome. However, when you look at it as a pattern to unlock a different path to the regular RLRLRLRL, then it’s more interesting because you can move the left and right hands onto different drum voices and make some interesting sounds.

The popularity of the paradiddle can also be limiting in the sense that it’s the go to rudiment. It’s important to keep an open mind with composing and to remember that you can make up your own patterns, in a similar way to the paradiddle, but different. Let’s take the idea of the paradiddle and make new rudiments, new patterns, new standards. Surely there’s other patterns we can be playing. OK let’s give it a go. RRLLLRLRRRL. Any good? Maybe it’s amazing played in an 11/8 time signature. I’ve not tried it, but do you get what I mean?

So anyway, let’s get onto the point of the post. This exercise sheet works with the popular paradiddle and shows how you can make practicing it interesting by moving the accents to toms and cymbals and making up different exercises with it.

The first 3 exercises are all seperate ideas, and then the 4th exercise combines all 3.

The paradiddle features in most of the Rockschool drum grades, so it’s not going away any time soon. You can work on these exercise at any level really, which is why I’ve specified a non specific ’60 to 120bpm’ as the speed. Basically, practice these with or without a metronome at what ever speed seems manageable and then try to increase it each time you go through it, or do it faster next time.

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PDF: Paradiddle Exercises Moving Accents To Toms and Cymbals

Sheet 1 – 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Grade 1-2

For this exercise sheet, you will need some basic beginners reading knowledge of drum beats and drum fills.

In the exercises, you will play 3 bars of drum beats, 1 bar of a drum fill and then repeat the exercise. There are 4 exercises on the sheet and each one can be played twice, or more times if you like and perhaps the sheet can be revisited on over several practice sessions if needed.

On the first 3 exercises, there are times when there are 2 hi hats on their own with no bass drum or snare drum, so it’s helpful to especially listen out for these two hits whilst playing to avoid missing one of them out, as some learners can do by accident.

All of the drum fills are played on the snare drum only. If there are 2 lines attaching the notes, they are played as 4 fast notes. If there is 1 beam attaching the notes, they are 2 medium speed notes, and if there is one single note on it’s own, it’s 1 single hit lasting for 1 beat. There is also a rests for 1 beat that look like a squiggle on the 3rd exercise’s drum fill, so for that you don’t play anything, and wait for 1 more beat before continuing.

More Sheets like this

If you found this exercise sheet useful, you can download all 10 sheets in this premium ebook: 40 Beats and Fills Exercises Ebook.

Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 2 – Grade 1-2

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Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 2 – Grade 1-2

It’s still the summer holidays and most people are taking a well deserved break. I’ve been on holiday and I’m fully relaxed but I have a few lesson days coming up so I’m keeping on with lesson prep and making new material like this. I have made this sheet for some of my drum students to learn and practice over the holidays, which can be done in about 5 minutes and can be easily practiced several times per week.

In this practice routine, we are covering many of the fundamental parts of grade 1 and grade 2 material. First on the sheet we have singles and doubles (left handers need to play the opposite sticking to the ones shown). Whilst we don’t usually learn a proper double strokes technique until about grade 5 level, we still play doubles to get used to it, and you will just be hitting the drum with the same technique as you would for a single hit.

Secondly, we will be accenting (playing louder) the ‘off beat’, which means it’s not on the 1 2 3 4, it’s in between those. You could cound 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +. The accents would then be on every +. Then, moving onto a basic drum beat in the second bar, the accents are played in the same place but this time you play them on the hi hats.

The flams and stepped hi hat section is for building up your stepped hi hat coorination aswell as for practicing the all important flam. Make sure the stick height for the quiet note in the flam is kept quite close to the drum (2 to 4 inches depending on the volume). The stick can start at a much higher position for the loud note in the flam.

For the rhythm/fills section, I have included ‘breakfast rhythm’ counting to help. If you say the words at the same time as playing the rhythm, it should help you. The rhythm on the drum fill is the same as the one in the first bar on the snare drum, so it’s a nice exercise that flows.

Lastly, many students complain about improvisation, so it’s important to practice this until confidence is higher. Start off with really easy drum fills lasting for 1 bar and build up your confidence with each practice.

Related: Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 1 – Grade 1-2

Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 1 – Grade 1-2

In this practice routine, we are covering many of the fundamental parts of grade 1 and grade 2 material. On the sheet we have a paradiddle 8 times (left handers need to play the opposite sticking).

There are accents on 8th note snare drums and then moving onto a basic drum beat, the accents are played in the same place but this time on the hi hat part of the drum beat.

The flams and stepped hi hat section has a classic rock feel to it and it is an easy way of introducing 4 way coordination into your playing.

For the rhythm/fills section, it’s the same rhythm on the drum fill as it is in the first bar on the snare drum, so it’s a nice exercise that flows, so we do that 8 times.

Related: Drum Practice Routines – Sheet 2 – Grade 1-2

Snare Drum Piece – Jan 2018

Here is some drum sheet music of a snare drum piece, which can be played by a solo snare or a snare line group.

The snare piece starts off in 3/4 timing and then moves into 4/4. There are various dynamic changes. There are also plenty of techniques involved. In bar 2 there is a flam. Bar 3 sees the first buzz roll. Bar 4 has a rim hit on the last note. Bar 8 has a drag at the end. Bar 9 and 10 are repeated 4 times and feature accents. Bar 11 starts the quietest section in pp, which means very quiet (pianissimo). Bar 12 sees the first rest, and the final techniques are found in the final bar, which are ghost notes.

Related: Group Snare Drum Piece with 3 difficulty levels (Piece 2, Book 1)

(Premium) – 10 Snare Drum and Floor Tom Pieces – Book 1

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Summary

This book was written over the course of 1 year for a group of youth drummers (Montgomeryshire Youth Music Drumline) in Powys, Wales. I have compiled the year’s pieces into an ebook that can be used by other drum teacher, or by self taught drummers. The pieces are similar to Snare Drum Sheet Music style pieces, but with the added timbre of a floor tom. You can achieve quite an epic cinematic sound by combining the two drum voices in unison. Difficulty levels from Grade 1 to Grade 3-4.

People that might find this book useful

  • Drum groups, drum workshops and drum ensembles – Youth groups or adults
  • Drum teachers are completely free to print the book or single sheets for their students.
  • Drummers can teach themselves following on from a strong basic foundation in reading and playing
  • Drummers that need to perform for school or competition etc.
  • Drummers looking to improve their rhythms for drum fills and snare drum sheet music
  • Groups of drummers can perform together using a snare and floor tom each, or by using any other two drums

Rules for sharing this content

When you purchase the book, you will receive a .pdf file that you can keep and use forever.
You can email the .pdf file privately to your students
You can print out unlimited copies for your students or for yourself
You cannot resell the .pdf or distribute the .pdf file online in any way (not even for free). This also applies to exported images, photos or scanned copies of the book

About the book

The 10 pieces are performance pieces for drums, with no backing. Drum groups, or individual drummers can perform these pieces. They have been written to sound good as standalone pieces – they are not just practice exercises. The pieces do not focus on many dynamics, but they do cover many techniques, rhythms and some rudiments, from quarter notes to sextuplets and triplets, and from flams to drags and buzz rolls.

Some of the pieces have multiple parts, which may be played together. So, if your group has varying ability levels, some can play part 1, some part 2, and some part 3. Not all the pieces have 2 or 3 parts. Please check the contents page to match up the pieces. I have compiled the book in order of difficulty. The levels go from about grade 1 up to grade 3-4 level.

Reading Tip: I developed the writing over the year. For pieces with two stave lines – the top line is the snare and the bottom line is the floor tom.

Final Thoughts

This book is a follow on from “10 Snare Drum Pieces – Book 1”, written in 2015. That book was for snare drum only, and in the last 2 years has been purchased by 60 people from all around the world, many of which are teachers themselves who are using the book to teach their students or drum groups with.

I hope this new ebook will inspire more groups of this type. I’m sure it’s not the first time it’s been done with groups of drummers, each playing a snare and floor tom, but I do think it is very rare to see it. I hope to inspire other groups to adopt this idea. I’m sure this won’t be the first and last book of it’s kind, because I intend to continue teaching the MYM Drumline for many years to come, and I will be writing new pieces for the group regularly.

Recommended reading for use with this ebook:
→ Accent Techniques – Down, Tap, Up, Full Strokes
→ Reading Buzz Rolls And Double Stroke Markings

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Accent Practice Exercise for Snare Drum

This exercise was created to support the learning of playing paradiddles with accents along with a metronome at 70bpm in the Grade 2 Rockschool technical exercises 2012-18 syllabus. I have also suggested to try practicing the sheet between 60 and 120bpm, with or without a metronome. 75-120bpm would be pushing the ability level up to at least Grade 3-4.

It can be hard to play paradiddles with a metronome at first, and if you haven’t worked with a click much before it’s also hard for 16th notes and 8th notes. This exercises works on playing 16th notes with a right, left, right, left sticking to get used to this. Then when you take away the left hand, you are left with right hand 8th notes, which is why they are the foundation of this exercise (first and 3rd line).

On the second line, the R L R L sticking on the 16ths prepares the drummer for the transition to 16ths from 8th notes before going from 8ths to paradiddle 16th notes in line 4. Then with the repeat the first 2 lines are there to settle in to the transitions again. By the end of the exercise the paradiddles exercise should become much easier. The actual grade 2 drums rockschool technical exercise is line 4 played twice.