Jonathan

  • Full-kit paradiddles (#1-6). If you want, you can practise each pattern like this:
    • Play along to a metronome at a slow tempo (ex. 50 bpm).
    • Once you feel comfortable with the tempo, increase it (ex. raise it 10 bpm).
    • Keep doing this until you get to a fast tempo (ex. 150 bpm).
  • By coincidence, this video popped up on my YouTube! It attempts to explain why many black gospel musicians are so skilled. The ending bit focuses on drummers in particular. Check it out if you’re interested.

Will

  • Verse’s main beat (bar 3) and chorus’s main beat (bar 5). If you want, you can practise them like this:
    • Play the verse’s main beat with a metronome at a slow tempo (ex. 40 bpm).
    • Once you feel comfortable with the tempo, increase it (ex. raise it 5 bpm).
    • Keep doing this until you get to the tempo of the recording (92 bpm).
    • Play through the entire recording using only the verse’s main beat OR only play during the verses and drop out for the choruses.
    • Repeat the whole process with the chorus’s main beat.
  • “Say-and-play”: Improvise (make up on the spot) a solo while saying what you’re playing using gibberish words/sounds. If you want, you can practise it like this: start by only using one drum, then do it with two drums, three drums, etc.

April

  • Clap/play this and this. If you want, you can practise each rhythm like this:
    • Play all the rhythms with a metronome at a slow tempo (ex. 50 bpm).
    • Once you’ve played all the rhythms and feel comfortable with the tempo, increase it (ex. raise it 10 bpm).
    • Keep doing this until you get to a fast tempo (ex. 125 bpm).

Aidan

  • Learn D’Angelo’s Spanish Joint (or at least the main/verse beat) with this annoyingly 14-part tutorial. The instructor tends to play something in one video and explain it in the next.
  • If you want, check out the whole D’Angelo album, Voodoo. It’s a very, very important album insofar as it influenced many prominent musicians today in the world of black music (R&B, hip-hop, soul, funk, jazz fusion, gospel, etc.).