2021 Rhythm Armada

Battery Technique Packet

Welcome to the 2021 Season!

Exercises / Audition Process:

In this packet, we have many exercises we will play throughout the season. Please be ready to

play these exercises at various tempos. Those who intend to march in the drumline should be

able to mark time through all of these exercises. During the audition process, you will be

expected to have the following exercises not only comfortable but memorized.

For your audition, bring your mallets, your drum pad, and a willingness to learn! We will have

lots of time before we start playing on the instruments. We will talk about our technique and

approach. During this time we may spend a lot of this time on pads.

The audition process will come from how comfortable you look and sound. Not only do you

need to be prepared with a strong sense of fundamentals, but also be prepared to make any

adjustments needed. It is just as important for the staff to see how you handle new

information. The season will be filled with new instructions constantly.

Please come prepared!

We want to spend our time working on fundamentals and getting your overall technique ready

for this upcoming season, not spent trying to learn new music. Please show us you are ready to

learn new skill sets by having materials handed out to you previously prepared.

Show off what you got!

Overall, the purpose of the audition process is for you to show off what you are capable of, how

well you play with other members of the line, and how well you respond to feedback - we want

to see if you will be a good fit for the ensemble. Don’t be afraid to ask questions during this

process if you don’t feel like you understand the directions given to you. We want to see you at

your best mind set and make the whole audition process as fair as we can for every member

auditioning!

OUR APPROACH

Relaxed Fulcrum with American Grip

We will tell you this phrase many times so know it by

heart; “CONTACT WITHOUT PRESSURE”. The relaxed

fulcrum approach is to have full contact on the stick

without any excess gripping of the stick.

Think of this analogy;

We want both hands on the steering wheel with as

much contact as possible to have as much control on

the vehicle.

This applies to drumming as well. The more contact

we have on a stick, we are more likely to have more

control.

Notice in the picture below that the index finger is on the stick at all times but not exactly

wrapped around the stick entirely. This allows the player to take more advantage of the back

three fingers to provide more of a contact without full reliance on the index fulcrum.

With this approach we can allow a little space between the index

and middle finger. All of our fingers still remain full contact on the

stick. Also notice the space between the thumb and the palm. Try to

minimize that space as much as you can without any squeezing to

achieve that. A good reference point you can use is if your knuckles

turn white at all when holding the stick, chances are you are using

too much tension. Relaxed and openness of the hands = relaxed

and open sound quality from the drum.

Most of your control will be felt near the back of the hand in the

“pocket” created with your back three fingers and fleshy inside of

your hand.

Try to avoid unneeded pressure in the index and thumb The butt of the stick should be slightly

visible out the back of the hand.

Hold the stick with a soft touch. Try to make the stick feel Heavy.

Stick Heights

We will define stick heights with inches or degrees in relation to the drum head.

3”/ 0o = Piano

6” / 30o = Mezzo Piano

9” / 45o = Mezzo Forte

12” / 60o = Forte

15” / 90o = Fortissimo

Another way to think about these heights is at 3” your sticks are parallel against the drum head.

At 9” is as high as you can raise your sticks by using your wrist. 6” is somewhere in the middle

between 3”/9”. At 12”, we start taking advantage of the weight of our arm to add more velocity

and sound. 15” is vertical against the drum head.

For each of these heights we will take advantage of the 80/20 rule. This means for most strokes

that are continuous or legatos, we will initiate our strokes by using 80% wrist and 20% arm.

Another way to think of this is that the wrist does most of the work but the arm naturally

follows the wrist without any conscious effort. This will allow the weight of the arm to create a

more full sound out of the drum.

Playing Through the Top Head

Think about a separate drum head right underneath the top layer. Try to think about playing

through the top head to hit that metaphorical second layer. This will utilize the bottom head

and allow the drum to project more. This will be achieved through a combination of the 80/20

rule and the velocity at which you move the drumstick.

Move Faster, Not Harder

We want to move the stick with enough velocity that it will naturally rebound for almost

everything that we do. Think about how a basketball

bounces. When you dribble a basketball you want to push

fast enough so that the ball will rebound where it started.

We use the same concept. We need to apply enough

speed through the stick so that the stick rebounds from

the height it started at. Meaning we apply more energy

through the stick if we start at 12” compared to 3”. Notice

if we apply too much velocity at low heights then the stick

will rebound past it’s original height.

Grids Sixteenth

Triplet

Compound