In this video I'm going to be playing the Trinity Grade 5 Rudimental Study no.
1 and I'm going to be wittering on about all the different rudiments that you need to learn
once you get beyond beginner level.
Welcome to Beginner Drums!
Right, before I start Beginner Drums is NOT about playing Grade 5 level tunes - Beginner
Drums is all about getting you up to around Grade 3 level, but a few people have been
asking "what happens when you get beyond grade 3?"
so I thought I'd record a few of the Grade 5 tunes so you can have a listen.
Now, as with all of the Trinity grades you have to perform a solo rudimental study, an
accompanied 'group A' tune and a solo 'group B' tune.
On Grade 5 there are two rudimental studies and you have to perform both of them.
Grades 4 and 5 introduce a lot of new rudiments - in fact it's the biggest learning curve
out of any of the grades, in my opinion.
So here's a quick recap of ALL of the rudiments across all of the grades.
So Grade 1 starts you off on Single Strokes, Double Strokes and Single Paradiddles; Grade
2 brings in the Flam, the Drag and the Four Stroke Ruff; Grade 3 rounds off the beginner
grades with the 5, 7 and 9 stroke rolls.
Grade 4 then introduces the Flam Tap, the Flam Accent, the Flamacue, the Flam Paradiddle,
the Double Paradiddle and the Paradiddle-diddle; Grade 5 brings in the Drag and Stroke, the
Double Drag and Stroke, the Drag Paradiddle, the Single Ratamacue, the Double Ratamacue
and the Triple Ratamacue; Grade 6 then introduces the Triple Paradiddle and the Reverse Paradiddle.
And finally Grade 7 introduces the Pata Fla Fla, the Swiss Army Triplet and the Inward
Paradiddle.
There are no new rudiments in Grade 8.
So at Grade 4 and Grade 5 there are more new rudiments introduced in a single grade than
Grades 6, 7 & 8 combined.
So my point here is that getting to Grade 3 level isn't a walk in the park - you need
to put in a LOT of hard work to confidently learn the initial batch of nine rudiments,
but if you do it well and get a good mark for your Grade 3 exam you will be a decent
drummer!
As you go beyond that Grades 4 & 5 are where the bulk of the rudiments come in and I think
Trinity are making the assumption that once you're at Grade 3 level you're an accomplished
enough drummer that learning 12 rudiments across 2 grades shouldn't be too hard if you
put the effort in.
Having said that all of the Grade 5 pieces are great fun to play and that's why I thought
I would record some of them for you.
One final point and then I promise I'll play some drums!
I don't normally use my full drum kit set up when teaching grades because it's not representative
of what you get in the exam.
In the exam you're going to get maximum one, maybe two crash cymbals depending on the grades
that you're doing.
So when teaching on the main Beginner Drums site you'll notice that I use a reduced set
up and that's why, because if you have this full set up that you practice on that's not
what you're going to get in the exam, so it's much more representative to use a smaller
kit, but for this quick demo of these grades I don't think there's any harm in showing
you it on the full kit - yeah, OK - I'll shut up and play something!