![]() ![]() The drummer must lift the stick smoothly off the drum, in synch with that rebound. The stick bounces back, but a tense hand and arm won’t respond smoothly to that sudden burst of energy kicking back off the head, and won’t be able to efficiently manage the direction the stick takes. Stiffening up and hammering that first, accented note into the drum, results in a loss of control. The challenge for percussionists is to learn to control, direct – and sometimes tame – that burst of energy off the drum. And y ou don’t have to “hammer” it down to get a solid rebound just by dropping it, or gently tossing it onto the head when playing quicker passages, the stick bounces back. ![]() What drummers have to consider is that when a stick falls or is dropped onto a drum, it creates kind of a minor explosion, and if it’s dropped from a higher level, that explosion is going to have more energy. So we’re going to drop that accented first note from a higher level than the subsequent three, unaccented notes. Keep in mind that to play louder on a drum, we simply drop the stick from a higher level – as opposed to pushing or beating down harder onto the instrument. The first thing to consider when playing paradiddles is how to play that accented first note. To control accents and dynamics in general, and to help students play with a relaxed stroke, I teach a system called Lifts and Levels (watch the video here), which I incorporate into the teaching of paradiddles. The one thing we always keep in mind – the underlying concept that informs whatever we play – is that we play as efficiently and tension-free as possible.
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December 2022
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