I recently picked up a stack of Mitchell Peters books, one of which contains several variations on this classic, and it seemed like a good time to round up the various sources and variations on […]
Category: rudiments
MD column: Alternative open roll stickings
Here’s an interesting piece from that same old Modern Drummer from 1977. The writer, Mickey Earnshaw, proposes a set of alternate roll stickings, using the RLLR/LRRL paradiddle inverion or the RLLR/RLLR sticking in place of […]
You knew this was coming…
Here’s the latest stupidly-named iteration of my basic paradiddle exercise, this time using 16th note 7s, septuplets, or whatever you want to call them. As always, play through the entire page, then play combinations of […]
It’s a five-off
Following the lead of Four On The Floor’s 5 Beat Groupings (including a hip way of using Stone on the drumset), and Trap’d’s 5 beat figures in triplets, here’s another variation of the paradiddle exercise […]
3.5-a-diddles
So-called because it consists of three and a half “paras” (RL RL RL R), plus a diddle (LL), and I… never mind. I was hitting the practice pad along with an Illinois Jacquet/Wild Bill Davis […]
Paradiddle round-up
In case you haven’t gotten enough to work on with the paradiddle things I’ve posted, here are some exercises gathered from around the web. I’ve only linked to pages that actually use notation- I’m a […]
Umdaga, part 1
This is a very simple pattern I use a lot- I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the basic DNA instructions of my playing: right/left/bass. I didn’t exactly make it up, but […]
Quick takes
– Jon McCaslin @ Four on the Floor shares this video of Marvin “Bugalu” Smith, who I had actually not heard of before. He was in Sun Ra’s and Archie Shepp’s bands in the 80’s. […]
Swiss triplets exercise
Here’s a fairly challenging swiss triplet exercise we used to play in my advanced practice pad group. The trickiest part seems to be the fourth line, with the 5/16 groupings comprised of a swiss triplet […]
Paradiddle shift with bass drum
This is something I’ve been working with, and finally had the time to write up. The paradiddle shift is a pretty common exercise involving the displacement of the paradiddle by one 16th note. Most people […]
How we used to learn the open roll
I just got a very nice note from Jim Buckley about the following comment of mine from the Drummerworld.com. Jim is a major figure in corps- he marched snare with Ghost in one of the […]
Matt’s paradiddle thing, pt. 2
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been working a bunch with the paradiddle page I wrote up for my student Matt F, usually combining single repetitions of each exercise, as described in the post. Last night I […]