Paradiddle pyramid
After seeing this played by Steve White (Paul Weller) I felt the need to spread the love of this easy but wicked sounding exercise.
I first saw it written on Sharescience, the video shows the drummer playing it a various speeds on the snare only, but Steve leads on the cymbals and snare.
the whole thing is made up using a single para-diddle followed by a double and then a triple para-diddle.
R l r r L r l l
R l R l r r L r L r l l
R l R l R l r r L r L r L r l l
R l R l r r L r L r l l
R l r r L r l l
You start at the top of the pyramid and work down playing each level twice and then move on to the next stage, the letters in capitals are accented, you can start on the snare only if you like or go strait to leading with the cymbals + the bass drum and snare.
Start, and get it smooth, then add accents, when that feels steady, up the speed. Enjoy!
Enhancements of the exercise.
a) You can increase the repeats of each stage, X3 etc
b) move the non leading hand around different drums or cymbals
c) add a flam at the beginning of each stage
d) change all the accents to Flams
Tags: paradiddle