Diddles

[jakerook5]

Alright I had a few questions about getting people to not crush their diddles, I'm the section leader of my high schools drumline and I'm going to be giving lessons to a couple of kids over the summer. They have a big problem with crushing their diddles and not playing them very open. What would you consider the best way for getting them to open their diddles. I remember when I first started and had trouble with this I played a lot of double beat, some people though would do things like play on a pillow, practice a roll excercise, or just straight up play their diddles and opening them up. Just wondering what should I recommend to them doing to get them better quickly.

[JonDeSt]

I learned to not crush my diddles by playing a roll exercise very slowly to make the rolls sound even, then slowly working the tempo up from there.

[DrummerJay322]

Have your kids play single hand sixteenth/eighth note groupings really slow. Emphasize that there are two notes that need to be heard. There should be "air" in between both notes, open but there's a bounce to it. The diddles should "breathe", my man. Like the word, "data", broken up into its two syllables. (Da-ta, da-ta,da-ta)
Slow tempos are paramount here, homie.

[schorsquatch]

In general, high schoolers have problems with diddles for two reasons.
1. They do not understand that a diddled note has a very definite timing (e.g., 32nd notes)
2. They do not understand that diddle technique varies over tempo.

Typical diddle problems are manifested as students just slamming down a roll and not understanding which hand has the release, or students seeing a diddle and just trying to bounce the sticks, regardless of the tempo.

Exercises to play it slowly, as described above, are just a couple of effective ways to tackle these issues.

Whatever you do, you should be looking for what the player seems to be having trouble with, and building exercises around tackling that issue.

For the timing issue, stick control is the way to go. 1 measures of 16th note check (LRLRL) and 1 measure diddled 8th notes (RRLLRRLL). Then release, rest for two bars, repeat. metronome.

For the technique issue, of course, open-closed-open is the holy grail, but most hs students don't have the patience or maturity to really get something out of that. So start with stick control, then jack the tempo up to say 160bpm. Then switch over to triplet rolls starting at 100bpm, and jack the tempo up to 160. Then switch to full open rolls (use your stock exercise). The goal is to force them to feel the rolls through three different tempo regimes... especially the mid-tempo transition (triplet rolls).

EDIT... if the student seems to have a good diddle interpretation, but just crushes them out, then that is probably a strength issue. Take a lightweight fabric (e.g., dish towel, old t-shirt, whatever) and fold that on top of the drum/practice pad. Taking that extra rebound away and really forcing them to dig in will help with the strength. Challenge them to play a roll at-tempo for as long as they can. That's a great workout too!

[bigdaddyflamtap]

Playing across 2 different surfaces is also beneficial (ie Right hand on snare/ Left hand on tenor head ). It makes it easier to distinguish which note on which hand has the problem.

Most of the problems are going to be 2nd note weak hand BUT that is not always the case.

Another exercise you can try is something I call a suicide - 1 count check of 16th notes or/ 8th triplet|1 count roll| check|2 counts roll|check .... etc. building it up to 10 counts and playing it back down is a work out. Doing it slow (start slow 90 ish) gives lots of time to listen to clarity. (Not to mention it becomes somewhat of a competitive thing which is instructor gold - the kids getting in reps because THEY chose to - mic drop!)