Uptempo Exercises for Developing the Upbeat

This simple set of exercises is an extension of the uptempo playing exercises you can find in John Riley’s “Beyond Bop Drumming”.

As very few of those exercises deal with playing the up-beat, I wanted to write a set of practice exercises that focus on developing uptempo up-beats.

The exercises follow a similar pattern to the way Riley laid out his exercises. They are four bar patterns with the left hand moving around the kit from bar to bar and the last bar as a rest

You can see the first set in the picture, the rest you can find in the PDF.

As a goal, you want to be able to play these at a minimum tempo of 300bpm. However, you should start slower and ensure the placement is right and not upsetting the cymbal time. Try starting around 252bpm and working up from there, but start slower if you need to.

There is a 300bpm bass loop on the Beyond Bop Drumming accompanying CD which is very useful to practice these kinds of exercises with.

Have fun. Make music.