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I am a musician of many many years just now learning how to drum. I am trying to get in the habit of running through exercises out of "Stick Control" and the general rudiments often.

One thing I don't get is whether I should avoid or plan on accenting on down beats. In piano one of the most difficult things I had to un-learn when I got advanced is how to produce a scale with each note being precisely the same volume as the previous one. I had been close before but as I got to more advanced pieces notes that stood out even the slightest (and my inability to keep them from doing so) created issues.

Trying to avoid the same issue here. However this is confusing to me. When I go through the first page on stick control exercise for example 3 and 4 are the same exercise. They just switched which hand starts the measure. Similarly for 5 and 6 (pictured) 6 is the same rhythm as 5 just offset by 3 eighth notes.

This leads me to believe I am intended to accent the downbeat? Or is this just so I can get used to playing with the metronome beat falling at different points in the pattern?

Want to make sure I am learning the right muscle memory. Exercise 5 and 6

Then what about patterns like 9 and 10. I am guessing the important lesson is to not accent that single note thats played even though that is that hands only job for the exercise. Should I still be accenting downbeats though? enter image description here

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CalebK is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering. Check out our Code of Conduct.
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  • > Or is this just so I can get used to playing with the metronome beat falling at different points in the pattern? How would the metronome beat fall at different points in the pattern? Apart from the hand-choice realisation/technique instruction, the rhythm notation is identical. Would you interpret a different "pattern" in some piano part sequence if there was simply a change in fingering? No specific finger nor a finger change is to be treated as implying any change in accentuation unless actually marked so. I do wish your rudiment source had better annotations on goals, though. Commented yesterday

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No. For an exercise, if the downbeat were meant to be accented, then it would be written.

Stick control exercises of this type are meant to be played with focus on evenness from note to note, in both time and volume. That's the control that you're training here. A "perfect" stick control playthrough would sound like "R R R R R R R R R R ..." to a blindfolded listener.

The offset rhythms are necessary to practice because they do feel different to play, because of the different relation to the downbeat.

When you go to play actual music, all bets are off. You may find it tasteful to slightly accent some downbeats. Since you've learned stick control, you can make that choice. (Some drummers can't keep themselves in time without putting extra weight on downbeats, so they don't have a choice.)

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    I have no percussion training, so take this with a grain of salt, these rudiment exercises remind me of piano five finger exercises. You don't really go anywhere musically, but rather the work is all about developing coordinated and independent movements, for fingers with piano and with hands/arms on drums. Commented yesterday
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Practise both ways. Those paradiddles will almost inevitably have accents on beats 1 and 3, as there's time to lift the stick higher when the opposite hand plays two consecutive hits. But, in any case, good drummers should be able to accent any hit, anywhere, so get used to keeping the hits even, all through, but also accenting beats 1 and 3, as a lot of 4/4 music does anyway.

When these rudiments are used in normal playing, then beat 1 will often be on the kick, so it won't make that much difference to the sound, but, as before, total control is the answer, so, practise both ways. More important is to keep them regular, and in perfect time.

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“I’d start by keeping the rudiment totally even, then add accents on purpose (quarters, offbeats, or every 3rd note) to train control. If you can place accents anywhere without tensing up, you’re winning.”

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Zoa Brown is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering. Check out our Code of Conduct.
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    What are you quoting here? Commented 18 hours ago

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