The last few weeks I’ve been writing about warming up and coming up with stickings, giving some ideas on taking small exercises and splaying them out into creative playgrounds. This week, I’m sharing the material that I use to do so.

Let’s review the goals of a warm-up session:

1. Develop instrument-specific technique
2. Develop creativity
3. Develop expressivity
4. Prioritize long-term results
5. Hone mental representation

​For a deeper dive into those, check here​

And when I warm-up on the snare drum, I typically cover these areas:

1. Mind, Torso, Shoulder, Arm, Wrist, Finger, et. al.
2. Grouping Notes: Rebounds, Forwards and Backwards
3. Inverted Doubles
4. Bounces
5. ALMOST Repertoire

But, WHAT should we play during these blocks?

It’s not great neurologically to practice technique through repertoire. At the same time, developing technique that will have no use is futile. I prefer to practice technique on its own—during my “warm-up” period, but focus my technical study on material relevant to the music I’m learning, techniques that are stumbling blocks to the music at hand. So, I organized a LOT of technical exercises by category for easy reference.

My Snare Drum Taxonomy

I started with Christopher Lamb’s method book survey. Lamb’s survey takes us through a comprehensive practice routine. He suggests exercises from a variety of seminal American and French texts, and indicates the purpose of each exercise. It’s fantastic.

My needs are different. I wanted mine to expose my students to more seminal texts in our pedagogical literature, but to shift the focus towards skills required in chamber music and away from symphonic repertoire (soft playing, extreme timbral flexibility, a general lightness and melodicism). I wanted the ability to have many exercises which articulated in different manners ways of developing similar technical and musical skills. I wanted to be able to find a technical study that was close to a piece of repertoire, but not exactly it. I wanted to be able try an example with a student, and easily find a parallel exercise if the original didn’t resonate.

In essence, I wanted a taxonomy—a method of identifying species and categories of exercises based on shared characteristics—and not a practice routine. Ideally, this text would allow an astute percussionist to observe difficulties in repertoire and easily juxtapose species of similar exercises to buttress their learning.

Lamb’s chapters correspond to techniques. I took these headings (genera) and reclassified them as types of motions. I broadened the scope of included species of exercises, drew upon more sources, and retooled the organization to be a little more weaponized, with the goal of addressing what I see as some of the most impactful developments to make to our percussion playing. Et voilà!

I think all the texts below are worth the investment of time and money, so check them out.

How I use it

1. Isolate challenging passages in the music I’m learning.
2. Isolate which category of technique might be most responsible for the difficulty in the passage.
3. Pick an exercise from the category that is most similar to the repertoire at hand.
4. Go. To. Town!

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The Themes

I. Mind, Torso, Shoulder, Arm, Wrist, Finger et. al.

Harnessing natural rebound by cooperating with a drumhead or playing surface. Our fingers, wrists, and arms can each independently strike percussion instruments. How does it sound when each group works alone, or when they work together?

II. Rebounds, Forwards and Backwards (Groups of Two)

To me, rebounds occur two ways. In the wild, their performance emphasizes the natural tendency of the 2nd stroke in a pair to be less strong. The hands are relaxed but the rhythm and dynamic of the two notes are uneven. The second, “domesticated,” format artificially enhances the 2nd stroke of a double to generate evenness in volume and rhythm when necessary. By balancing exertion against the drumhead’s powerful natural rebound, percussionists can harness their relaxation and play with directed laziness.

III. Rolls of all Shapes and Sizes (Three or More)

Sustained sound. Building on the symbiosis between our hands and the natural rebound of the drum, we search for a roll with the same sound color and malleability as our normal strokes, without substantial pressure into the head. Single, double, triple, and multiple bounce strokes are juxtaposed and density of roll varies independently of dynamic.

IV. Agréments, Accoutrements

The bountiful grace notes we use on the snare drum remind me of Baroque keyboard or string playing. Here, we develop rhythmic and dynamic control of grace notes through relaxation and constant motion.

V. Beginning to Begin: Etudes, Exercises Recapitulatifs

Playing with inflection and character: short etudes. Suave, timbrally diverse playing is essential.

I hope these ideas are helpful, and that you can use them to organize your own favorite exercises. I know I'm leaving out a lot here, so I'd love to know what resources, techniques, or other concepts you think would be great for me to include.

See you next week!

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