The Best Drum Exercise To Learn 100 New Rhythms

Throughout the period of 15 years, I discovered many useful exercises that develop independence, speed, control, this is the best drum exercise I run into. However, there are so few drum exercises that develop your precision or metric distance between strokes.

Having the right metric means having your groove tight. This exercise will ensure your hands and feet working together without flams.

This is definitely the best drum exercise I was able to discover. The progress is slow and painful but it changes me more than any other practice method.

Just think about it. Did you ever slow things down and zoom in of what is happening between your left-hand and right foot? Are they tight as hell or sloppy sometimes.

Well, this exercise will force you to do that, and when you’re finished you sound like a totally different drummer.

Many drummers today force speed and loud playing but just the opposite makes great drummer be great.

Knowing when not to play is essential, also knowing to play quietly is very important. Making difference between loud and quiet strokes is virtue of all professional studio drummers.

Do you want to become a pro? Then hush, those quite taps in between. Think about it like this, when you start a drum solo loud, fast and with 32nd notes there is nowhere to go, but if you start slow, quiet and work on your groove than you can make a change.

You will go through every possible combination of 16th note with hands and feet and with practicing at 50 PBM you will make sure that everything is clean, tight and on its place.

Drum exercise, we will start with 10 different accents. Make sure that unaccented notes are quiet and soft.

Do not hurry up the tempo stick to 50 bpm. These are all single strokes.

Repeat one accent until it comes natural and goes into your muscle memory.

You will start by accenting the first 16th note on the hi-hat and changing all 10 accents on the bass drum.

Let's start

Ok, now you already have 10 new rhythms.

The next step is to change the accent on the hi-hat and go through all 10 accents with feet.

You can help yourself with counting out loud like this: One, e, and, a…

Now, accent the 2nd 16th note on top (hi-hat) and go through all 10 accents with the foot.

I hope you get the idea of how this drum exercise work. You need to play one accent with the hands and one with the foot and then change the foot accent.

For one hand accent, you have 10 foot accents, this makes 10 rhythms. First, play one rhythm at the time before playing them all together. Alright, let’s continue…

Accent the 3rd 16th note on the hi-hat and go through all 10 accents with the foot.

Now, accent the 4th 16th note with hands and go through all 10 accents with the foot.

The next part of the exercise contains 6 changes on the top with all double accents.

First, accent 1st and 2nd note on top and go through all 10 variations with the foot.

Accent the 1st and the 3rd note on top an go through all 10 variations with the foot.

Now, accent the 1st and the 4th note on top and go through all 10 accents with the foot.

Accent the 2nd and the 3rd note with hands and go through all 10 variations with the foot.

Accent the 2nd and the 4th note with hands and go through all 10 variations with the foot.

Basically, every left-hand stroke is accented.

This is the last variation.

Accent the 3rd and the 4th 16th note with hands and go through all 10 variations with the foot.

This is it!

Now you have it, one hundred new rhythms.

I hope you will enjoy practicing this drum exercise and for the end, I want to remind you on a few things:

Practice slow
Keep unaccented notes very quiet
Practice with metronome
Make sure your metric is clean and tight

By the time all 100 rhythms sound good and you feel like playing every rhythm is easy for you, you’re dynamic and metric should be improved.

You should be able to play all one hundred rhythms at once.

Hopefully, you will come out as a new, improved drummer

Denis Loncaric

My name is Denis. I am a drummer, percussionist, music enthusiast, and blogger. Drums have been my passion for 15 years now. My idea is to write about the things I like and I am interested in. I want to share my drum passion with fellow musicians who walk, talk, and breathe drums.

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