Vanessa Domonique, a London-based drummer, wrote out a few drumming warm-up exercises. Try them and loosen up!
Single Doubles Warm-Up (sticking written above notes)
This warm up is simple and fun! Consisting of, as the title suggests – singles and doubles – this warm up will have you loose and exercising stick control in no time. Give it a once over before you tackle it as there is a little treat in there to force you to control your strokes rather than letting them bounce repeatedly.
As always, start out slowly, then gradually speed up.
16th-Note Groove
In the above exercise we take a look at a simple 16th-note beat and different ways of spicing it up by simply changing where we play our kick drum and snare.
The objective is to spark creativity and to better your time-keeping, since moving where the kick and snare are played can be off-putting at first when one is used to playing the kick primarily on the 1 and 3 (downbeats) and the snare on the 2 and 4 (backbeats).
BAR 1-8
Starting on beat 1, the kick drum shifts by one 16th-note on each bar. So, it’ll fall on beat 1, 1e, 1&, 1a, 2, 2e, 2&, 2a… and so on.
BAR 11-18
Here is where it gets a little tricky! Our snare has now taken on the role of the kick drum and vice versa. In order to properly execute the groove we’ll have to alternate our snare strokes (sticking written above notes).
Vanessa offers lessons in London and is available for booking, recording, etc. Check out her official website for more info.