Snare-drum exercise
Tech Routine 1

How to practice this

I and many others believe that technique should be taught by guiding the student through the process of developing an understanding and a feel for a variety of different motions.

This packet I've designed will help the student to gain comfort and familiarity with the full stroke, down stroke, tap, up stroke, multiple bounce roll, and double stroke roll. Special care has been taken to make the rhythmic language of the exercises as simple as possible in order to make them approachable. This simplicity should allow the student to focus deeply on the kinesthetics of each exercise.

Once the feeling of each of these motions is in the hands the student should be ready to begin a more serious study of the rudiments. The explanations given for each exercise provide cues for what to pay attention to during practice, and variations that will allow the student to get more mileage out of each pattern.

Nothing about these exercises is particularly original - in fact I have taken many of these ideas from other sources. I owe acknowledgement particularly to my teacher Rich Thompson who taught me his exercise "Thompson Triplets" which is the basis for "Trubbles," and to Murray Gusseck who authored many exercises used by Santa Clara Vanguard. The dynamic ideas in "Chicken Roll" are inspired by his approach to 8-8-16, and my roll builder "Dut-Dzh" is inspired both by "Warm Rolls" and "Diddle McNuggets."