Download the music here: Accent Tap
ACCENT TAP: This is consistently my #2 exercise. It uses the staccato stroke which is a little less fluid than the legato stroke used in EIGHTS.
The key is though, your hand does not do anything differently on the way down. It is the exact same stroke as in EIGHTS until you actually hit the drum. After contact, you stop the rebound on the way up to whatever height the next stroke is at, usually 3″ or 6″.
Again, NOTHING IS DIFFERENT ON THE WAY DOWN! Many players change everything for their staccato stroke and “whack” the drum to get the accent.
If you are playing from the back of the hand and initiating from the wrist, you will have plenty of sound quality and this extra force is unnecessary. Playing the high notes harder will actually make it that much more difficult to control the rebound on the way up. This will make your low notes (inner beats) higher than they should be.
After getting comfortable on one drum and locking in your heights and interp, start to play the around pattern.
Since you are going to the outside drums, make sure your accents don’t have a “slice”, where the stick is coming down at an angle. Each stroke should be perfectly up and down regardless of what drum is being played on next.
Also, pay attention to the inner beats and ensure that they don’t creep up in height as you are moving around. It’s easy to get lost in the motion and lose the definition of your heights. Your mirror will help you out with this!
After your heights are firmly established, shift your focus to the playing positions and make sure your right and left hands go out in a straight line from the inside drums to the outside drums.