Triplet Flow with Jazz Time

This is a good exercise for beginners, but in fact it can be useful for any level as a warm up or a way to practice moving in and out of time.

The basic idea is for you to play a bar of time and then a bar of single stroke triplets, repeating many times until it is smooth and flowing. The important point is to transition smoothly between the time and the triplets.

Next you play two bars of time and two bars of triplets; then 4 bars of each.

You get the idea, and can extend the idea to 8, 12, 16 bars of each.

At this point you can see you are developing foundations for trading fours, then eights, working up to 32 bar phrases. Don't be tempted to solo, just get used to the movement between time playing and the triplets.

Once comfortable you can start moving the triplets around the kit. But always maintain the smooth transitions.

The second page in the PDF gets a bit more challenging as it introduces accents. These can later be voiced and mixed to develop solos and so on.

Work with basic feet throughout and a variety of tempos. But start slow.

Get the PDF for free below.

This was originally posted on "Jazz Drumming Blog". This post has been revised from the original.