Drum Warm Up Exercises for Advanced Beginners to Early Intermediate

Introduction

Drum Warm Up Exercises for Advanced Beginners to Early Intermediate

Summary

• 20 Drum Warm Up Sheets for Grade 2-6 Levels (varies throughout and speed can affect ability)
• Printable PDF (drum teachers may print for their students but must initially be paid for once by the teacher)
• To be used by drum teachers or for self learning the drums.
• Uses 4 way coordination on most exercises
• Styles include Rock, Funk, Blues, Reggae, Metal, Jazz, Latin and marching snare drum.
• Incorporates intermediate level subdivisions such as quintuplets and sextuplets.
• Techniques include flams, drags, basic rudiments, accents, buzz rolls, open hi hats, ghost notes.

Contents

1. Snare Drum rhythm and Flam exercises, and swing in 3/4.
2. Sextuplets with accents on snare, and basic beats with open hi hats and moving to ride
3. Subdivision based snare drum exercise with walking foot pattern.
4. Varying 16th note rhythms moved around kit with walking feet.
5. Combinations of 8th note and 16th note rhythms with stepped hi hats.
6. 'Triplet Warm Up' on the snare drum with bass drum and stepped hi hat foot patterns.
7. Snare or practice pad warm up (no foot patterns). Drags, flams, accented sextuplets and quintuplets.
8. Paradiddles Warm Up - moving the paradiddle rudiment to create beats with hi hat and ride cymbal.
9. 'Snare March in 3' - With buzz rolls and marching snare drum. Includes optional bass drum and stepped hi hat patterns.
10. 'Accented 16th Notes' on the snare drum with walking bass drum and stepped hi hats.
11. 'Buzz Rolls and Rhythms' - mostly snare drum based with foot patterns. First bar of each line is filled with a buzz roll and then various rhythms are played every second bar.
12. 'Drags & Accents Snare Groove' - Accented back beat and bass drum on beat 1 to create a basic rock beat whilst the snares play 16th notes and perform drags.
13. 'Ride and Floor Toms warm up with accents and foot patterns' - 4 way co-ordination based warm up with both feet and both hands all together.
14. Bossa Nova Latin Warm Up - Latin drum exercises with 3-2 and 2-3 Clave.
15. Jazz Warm Up - Jazz drum beats and drum fills. Gets a little bit too hard if players have not played jazz before, but keep to the easier bars if needed.
16. Rock, Blues and Reggae Warm Up - Briefly covers each style with drum beat and drum fill exercises
17. 12 Double Kick Warm Up Beats - This one is for drummers that have 2 bass drums or a double kick pedal. The beats get quite difficult and rhythmic and will be too hard for drummers that have never played this style before.
18. Subdivision Warm Up - Covering quarter notes, 8th notes, triplets, 16th notes, quintuplets, sextuplets and 32nd notes. All with optional walking foot pattern.
19. 10 Funk Skip Beats Warm Up - Funk themed beats with ghost note skip beats and with open hi hats, to be repeated perhaps 4 times each or more.
20. 10 16th Note Hi Hat Beats Warm Up - with skip beats and varying bass drums. Hi Hats and 16th notes should be played with 2 hands, alternating throughout.

About the 'Drum Warm Up Exercises for Advanced Beginners to Early Intermediate' ebook

This ebook follows on from my previous ebook ‘Early Intermediate Drum Exercises’, but it was initially created shortly after starting work on ‘Beginners Drum Warm Up Exercises’ because I wanted to make some similar exercises for my students that were further along with their progression. Another book that may be of interest that would follow on from this is ‘40 Beats and Fills Exercises Drum Book 3’.

I have tried to make the warm up exercises useful for warming up, although they are perhaps not all drum warm ups in the traditional sense. To me they are what I would use to warm up with in a drum lesson or in a practice session. Many of them have a degree of learning involved so it will also be something to stretch the drum student in terms of learning and exploring new topics, techniques and styles. You can find some other more boring warm ups online that have a lot of repetition in, and perhaps you can use some of those too.

I wrote these exercises for my students that are studying drums at a level of about Grade 2 up to Grade 6. That is a wide range but many of these exercise sheets have easy and hard elements, and also they can be accessible to lower grades by playing them at a slower pace. 

I have been playing drums for 30 years and actually I have benefitted from playing through these, particularly the exercises with stepped hi hats in. You can really push these exercises to high speeds and also develop them yourself to make them harder or more varied.

Thank you for your interest in this ebook and I hope it gets some good use.

Theo Lawrence

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TL Music Books Website: https://tlmusicbooks.com/  

Made in Wales. Released 28th March 2026. Written by Theo Lawrence / TL Music Lessons.