2. Accent to Tap

Summary

Accent to Tap is typically the second exercise a drumline will play during their warm-up block. It’s continuing to build upon the development of the eighth note phrase to help with tempo control, but also begins to incorporate stick control and articulations while listening critically and blending sound.

Description

This exercise is a repeating pattern of eighth notes: 8 on the right and 8 on the left. It begins with eighth note taps on each hand, before adding a moving accent pattern to the phrase that ultimately shifts between the different subsections.

Purpose

Developing consistent taps is an important part of developing basic skills. Since the bulk of notes played are taps and are primarily responsible for establishing and maintaining the tempo, it’s important to ensure they are playing them with absolute rhythmic clarity. After the first two measure, we introduce accents into the exercise to train the incorporation of different stick heights (and thus, velocities) into the hands. As the accents begin to move around the subsections, the performers develop listening and rhythmic integration skills. The exercise is performed on a loop, with a 4 beat tap off between each rep.

Considerations

The tendency for the student will be to let the accents drive the pace exercise, when in fact they should focus in on the taps for clarity and tempo control.

Here are things you want to consider while running this exercise:

1. Attack: Start the exercise with a clean attack. Make sure all of the performers are subdividing vocally the last four beats of the tap off to help with a clean attack. if the attack isn’t clean, cut the exercise, and start again.
2. Quality of Sound: The taps should be played at a 3″ (Piano) dynamic level, but should still be played with enough velocity to get a good response from the drum. Similarly, the accents should be played at a 9″ (mezzo forte) dynamic level with a relaxed legato stroke that isn’t overplayed. It is critical that students maintain a relaxed grip on the stick to allow the prevent “choking off” the sound that the stick helps generate.
3. Hand Transition: Aside from the attack, the second most common place for error is the transition from the right hand to the left and the left hand back to the right. Have your drummers internalize the tempo and when it comes to the measure before the transition, have them quietly count (1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and…), where the first 4 beats are on one hand, and the “1 and” are the first two eighth notes on the new hand. This successfully navigates them to the new hand and locks them into the tempo on that hand.
4. Transition – Rebound to Downstroke: When transitioning from one hand to another in an exercise like this, the last beat on the hand ending a phrase (like transitioning from a group of right hands to left hands and vice versa) should be a downstroke that then stays in its set position. Then tendency for a beginner will be to allow the stick to rebound and then that hand will distractingly float around.
5. Tap after the Accent: I call this a “binary exercise” where the stick heights should only ever be 3″ or 9″. Focus on the tap after an accent, especially on the same hand as the tendency is to allow that tap to rebound higher than 3″. Make sure that tap is a controlled downstroke.
6. Release: The final pain point is the release because it’s a transition to a new hand, a potential change in stroke type, and the end of the piece. Because of this, a drummer may try to make it extra loud by reaching higher or adding velocity, both of which can cause clarity issues on the release. Reinforce that the last beat should never be overplayed.
7. Marking Time: The potential exists for new drummers to phase their feet when they play accented upbeats. Be sure to start slow and align upbeat notes with the lifting of the foot.