The Warm-up Patterns

The Warm-up Patterns

Exercise #1 starts with the feet playing alternating eighth notes while the hands play sixteenth notes on the snare drum. Notice how the right hand lines up with the feet on all shots. This is something you will want to keep in mind when you are first playing this pattern.

The second exercise sounds the same as the first, but is to be played differently. The feet are still playing the same eighth note pattern, and the hands are still playing sixteenth notes on the snare. However, the sixteenth notes on the snare are no longer alternating on every stroke. Instead, you play doubles back and fourth.

This changes the way the hands line up with the feet. Now, you will want to focus on playing the first stroke of the right hand along with the right foot, and same goes for the left hand and the left foot. Read over the pattern here carefully and you'll see how this works.

The first half of exercise three starts out exactly the same as exercise one. Then, for the second half, you change the singles to double strokes at twice the tempo. These double strokes are not played in the same context as exercise two, so be sure you review this pattern carefully.

The fourth and final warm-up takes the pattern from exercise one, and moves it around the toms. The first measure of this two-bar exercise moves down the toms, and the second moves back up. Read through it carefully, and then take it to your drum set.