Ilan Rubin was recently in the Reverb studio to show off his extended paradiddle warmup techniques. So if you'd like to know how to play paradiddles—and even paradiddle-diddles—across your drum kit, be sure to watch that previous tutorial.
And as the multi-instrumentalist behind The New Regime and drummer for bands like Nine Inch Nails, Paramore, and Angels & Airwaves, Rubin also also recently listed a bunch of accumulated gear in The Official Ilan Rubin Reverb Shop.
But today, he's here to teach three different bass drum exercises. Taken together, they'll help build up your pedal skills to play clear, articulated double-strokes, triplets, and more on the kick.
The first exercise is a simple pattern, with just four notes played across the hi-hat, snare, and kick. Then, "it's all about incorporating, application, and experimenting," he says. You can introduce ghost notes, mix it into a beat, and speed the pattern up. But be sure to play it across the dynamic range. Being able to play quietly and slowly is just as important as being able to play fast and loudly, Ilan says.
The second exercise starts with the bass drum, in a way that causes all of the doubles to land on the down beat—shifting the center of rhythm when compared to the first exercise. Again, go slowly at first and then play as dynamically as possible through multiple speeds.
Finally, the third building block incorporates triplets—with the first note on the hi-hat, and the second and third notes on the bass drum. When applied to a beat and incorporated with snare hits on the back beat, the basic pattern starts to sounds like the Bonham-esque rolls that first inspired Ilan to become a drummer.
As he says, now that your three building blocks are in place, you can mix and match to your heart's content.