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3 Essential Rudiments for Drummers

3 Essential Rudiments for Drummers

Check out this video for 3 essential rudiments you need to incorporate into your warm up routine

 

It is so important for drummers to warm up their wrists and fingers up before a day of drumming. We call these warm ups “rudiments”. 

A rudiment is a drummer’s bread and butter, as everything you do on the drums from grooves, to fills, to 15 minute drum solos can be brought back to the precise hand/finger movements and stickings from the rudiments. Keep in mind when you are drumming that the drumsticks are an extension of the body.

When we drum, we realise that regularly using rudiment exercises can increase our speed. We make sure that as we play on the practice pad or the drums that we play more so with our wrists and fingers, rather than our arms. There is a lot of arm movement in order to manoeuvre your sticks from one drum to the next, however, accurate playing comes more from the wrists and fingers working together.

If we involve our arms too much in our drumming movement or action, then we can easily tire ourselves out. The arms are best for getting from one drum or cymbal to the other, while the wrists and fingers take care of the rest.

It is important to keep your warm ups interesting! Try to play them to music on the snare drum or pad, and around the kit on different voicings of the drums and cymbals to the music.

Also, don’t rule out the metronome! The metronome is a tool which you can use to help create new benchmarks for you to soon beat.

A quick note if you are reading rudiments: we must make sure that we communicate the stickings and strokes with both subdivision counts and our Rights and Lefts. R – Right L – Left.

Happy Drumming!

Want more tips on drumming? Check out more tips to increase your speed.