The Pad - Exercise 4
By Nate Brown
The accented patterns in this exercise are written as eighth notes. That's not done to convey that these exercises should be played slowly. It simply makes reading where the accents fall easier. Your first goal should be to play these cleanly at any tempo. Then, increase your speed -- keeping it clean and consistent. Be sure to practice these exercises starting with your right stick and also starting with your left stick. If you're behind a drum set, you can even experiment with moving the accented strokes to a tom/s. Some of these will make great drum fills.
