Triplet Triple Paradiddle Developments

Following on from the previous post on triplet triple paradiddle inversions, this post looks at ideas for creating musical phrases. As I said, using the triplet triple paradiddle directly won't likely sound very musical, so we want some ways that we can use that as a basis for further jazz drumming ideas and applications, that are both challenging and interesting. Most of these ideas look at using space in different ways to break up the pattern.

The first idea, Exercise A1, is simply to drop the first note of each paradiddle. Exercise A1, in the PDF, does the same thing dropping the last note of the pattern. You can experiment with dropping more notes - two at the beginning or the end - and dropping other notes from within the pattern.

The second idea, Exercise B1, is to isolate the snare part. Experiment with voicing it around different sound sources. Exercise B2, in the PDF, is an interesting voicing between the snare and the bass drum.

Exercise C takes a whole fragment, in this case the whole paradiddle led with the left hand, and looks at placing it in different parts of the bar. You can also drop one or more of the notes, as suggested by the note in brackets, to make it more interesting. You can find and use other fragments.

Exercise D looks at leaving even more space - a whole beat. Again, you can try leaving out the other beats of the bar.

Exercise E, in the PDF, looks at taking one bar of the pattern and playing it in a four-bar phrase. This just means playing three bars of time and then playing the pattern under jazz time in the fourth bar. Once more, you can try two bars of time and a two-bar pattern. You should also work on the ideas from all previous sections in this way.

Finally, if that wasn't enough, you can work through a lot of similar ideas with all the different inversions found in the previous post.

Have fun. Make music.