AMOGH RAO
Drum Warmups for
Better Expression
Some of my favourite educational
moments in drumming have been
playing simple, straightforward
exercises alongside the many
teachers I’ve been lucky to have.
I first fell in love with the idea of
these exercises because of their
sheer versatility and applicability
around the instrument, beyond
just a traditional warmup. When
gearing up for a practice session,
it’s important to also warmup
your mind alongside your hands
and feet. Just practicing bars
and bars of rudiments has the
opposite effect, making you switch
off parts of your brain and go on
auto-pilot to the extent that when
you’re ready to actually play, your
creativity has vanished. Keeping
this in mind, here are two of my
go-to exercises. Feel free to twist
them around and re-apply them in
the infinitely different ways they
were made to be played.
Inverted Doubles
Far and above my favourite
exercise, since its applicability
has literally changed the way I
approach phrases, expression and
improvisation on the drums. The
exercise is simply 4 bars of right-
hand lead single strokes, 4 bars
of right-hand lead double strokes,
another 4 bars of right-hand lead
singles and then 4 bars of right-
hand lead inverted doubles. This
makes the last note of the 4 bars
fall on the right, switching the
whole exercise to left-hand lead.
You then play 4 bars of left-hand
lead singles, doubles, singles again
and finally 4 bars of left-hand lead
inverted doubles. Don’t forget to
keep an eight note on your foot!
Here’s the sticking –
34
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
RLRLRLRL x4 LRLRLRLR x4
RRLLRRLL x4 LLRRLLRR x4
RLRLRLRL x4 LRLRLRLR x4
RLLRRLLR x4 LRRLLRRL x4
The beauty of this seemingly
simple exercise is the comfort
you develop with inversions,
which invariably allows you to
fill in gaps in your grooves in
unimaginable ways. You’re no
longer playing simple ghost-notes
and drags to buff up your eight-
note grooves. These inversions
create brand new textures
across any and every groove
once brought up to tempo and
smoothened out.
Accent-Ghost Permutations
Arguably the most crucial
component to learning dynamics
is getting a strong control over
your wrists and fingers as they
play through different volumes
and attacks. Fortunately to begin
with, there are just two main
kinds of strokes needed to master
– the accent and the ghost-note.
And since there are just two, the
total possible permutations and
combinations only add up to 6.
However, they require significant
wrist control and technique as
you play them at higher tempos
in order to maintain fluidity. So
here’s an exercise that covers it.
Capital letters denote accents and
regular ones denote ghost notes.
RrRr rRrR
RRrr rrRR
rRRr RrrR
The same structure can be applied
to the left hand, and to get even
more creative, you can replace
each letter with a single stroke
roll (RL), or a double stroke or
any other simple/compound
rudiment. As long as you follow
the framework of accent-ghost
note, this system becomes another
conceptual skeleton that can be
applied in ridiculously enjoyable
ways across the pad and kit.