These 3 Basic Tenor Tips Will Turn You Into A Quad God!

Are you a beginning quad player?

Are you interested in quad drumming?

Are you teaching a Drumline but quads is not your primary instrument?

If you've never played quads before, it can certainly seem like a very mysterious instrument, but if you consider some basic tips I've outlined below, I'll have you looking like a quad god in no time!

Everything starts on one Drum!

It's always pretty funny whenever my beginning private quad students get so excited to bring their quad pads, ready to learn to play some arounds, only to find out that I have them playing on Drum 2 for the first few lessons.  So why do I subject my Students to such soul crushing disappointments?  Because everything starts on one drum! Before you can play around the drums with quality, you need to make sure you play with quality on one drum.  Once we get everything at a satisfactory execution level on one drum, we want to maintain that feel (as much as possible) when we are going around the drums.

Zones and Stick Angles are everything!

Just like we want to make sure we execute with high quality on one drum, we want to make sure we define our grip and establish the correct stick angles on one drum.  From there, we have to define the stick angles depending on what drum we are playing (which will depend on the preference of your instructors) and then make sure we understand our zones! The correct zones are usually the "sweet spot" between the middle of the drum and the very edge (bearing edge).  When playing drum to drum, you want to minimize the distance you have to travel by hitting drums in a zone that is closest to the neighbor drum because quad drumming is all about being lazy...I mean efficient ;)

Relax bro!

In order to move around the drums with speed and good flow, you want to make sure you are relaxed from the shoulders down.  Often times, when beginning quad players start out, they tend to tense up in order to make sure they are hitting the right drums.  But in exchange for accuracy, they sacrifice speed and flow.  So whenever possible and as a general rule, always try to play as loose and relaxed as possible and if you hit rim and cause a fire and burn down your band room due to all the sparks you are creating, that is ok! In the long run,  you will be better off learning how to hit the right drums while maintaining a smooth and loose approach.  Pretty soon you'll make things look super easy!

Ready for the next lesson?

I would grab that next lesson now, since I can't guarantee how much longer I'm going to make it available...