hey whats up guys. i'm a freshman snare on my high school's drumline. the main things i get corrected on is stopping the stick/keeping innerbeats down and having consistant and smooth innerbeats when playing at 3" or w/e. i have a pretty much the same problem with both hands. another snare says that i will just develop better control and techneque once i get more experience/strength. does anybody have any tips or good exercises i could use to get rid of the problem? thanks

-mike

Anything with an accent-tap type exercise will help with that. You just need to get used to "stopping the stick" as you put it.

A simple one is bucks, where you play 8 on a hand, accenting the downbeats. You can also try the upbeats, or whatever else you can come up with. Make sure you only play it at a speed where you can control it effectively. If you can't control it, you're not helping yourself, you're only practicing incorrectly and with bad habits. This probabaly means starting very slow, but you'll have to play it by ear as your practice.

Hope this helps,
Baker

another thing could be grip. make sure you have a firm but relaxed grip on the stick. you dont want it to be a death grip, but you also dont want it to be real loose and uncontrolled.

and, like baker said, accent/tap exercises help on this.

something helpful i find is that play a measure of check one each hand before an accent tap exersice. it lets you find the tap height and sets how it should feel.