Level Up Your Tap: Essential Drills for the Intermediate Dancer
You've got the basics down. Now it's time to build speed, clarity, and musicality with focused practice.
So you can execute a clean shuffle, your flap travels with purpose, and your time step feels solid. Welcome to the intermediate plateau—a thrilling yet frustrating place to be. The journey from intermediate to advanced isn't about learning a million new steps; it's about refining what you know, building relentless consistency, and developing a deeper conversation with the music.
The key? Strategic, mindful drilling. Forget mindless repetition. The drills below are designed to target specific weaknesses intermediate tapers face: muddy sounds, sluggish transitions, and limited rhythmic vocabulary. Commit these to your daily practice, and you'll hear the difference in weeks.
The Philosophy: Quality Over Quantity
Before we jump in, remember this: one clean, clear, and controlled repetition is worth twenty sloppy ones. Start slow—painfully slow. Focus on the purity of each sound (the brush, the strike, the drop). Only increase tempo when you can maintain that clarity. Your ears are your most important teacher.
Core Drill Series
These drills form the backbone of your technical workout. Do them as a warm-up, or dedicate entire sessions to them.
1. The Clarity Builder: Isolated Sound Drills
Goal: Eliminate muddy sounds and build independent muscle control.
The Drill: On a hard surface, practice making four distinct sounds in a row: Brush (shuffle front), Strike (toe drop), Spank (shuffle back), Drop (heel drop).
- Execute each sound separately with a 4-second pause between. Listen for a single, clean sound.
- Then, link them in a slow, even rhythm: BRUSH (1) - STRIKE (2) - SPANK (3) - DROP (4).
- Challenge: Change the rhythm. Try 1 & 2 & 3 & 4, or hold the brush and accelerate through the strike, spank, drop.
This trains your feet to articulate, not just move.
2. The Speed & Stamina Drill: Pendulum Flaps
Goal: Develop even, controlled speed and travel.
The Drill: Travel in a straight line doing continuous flap steps (brush-step).
- Start with 8 flaps forward, then 8 flaps backward. Focus on consistent distance and sound.
- Reduce to 4 flaps forward/back, then 2, then 1. The single flap change of direction is where control is built.
- Advanced Layer: Add a syncopated rhythm (e.g., flap, flap, FLAP-ball-change) on the turn.
This builds the calf endurance and precision needed for long, fast phrases.
3. The Rhythm Game-Changer: 3-Sound Riff Walk
Goal: Master the foundational rhythm step and its variations.
The Drill: A standard riff walk is: step (R), riff (brush-spank) (L), step (L), riff (R). Isolate the 3-sound riff (brush-spank-step).
- Practice the riff in place on one foot: BRUSH-spank-STEP. Accent different sounds: the brush, the step, or the spank.
- Then travel, doing a riff walk but mentally focusing on each riff as a triplet grouping.
- Challenge: Replace the "step" with a "hop" or a "jump" for aerial work.
This unlocks understanding of how complex rhythms are built from simple, layered units.
Musicality & Phrasing Drills
Technique is useless without musical intent. These drills connect your feet to your ears.
Drill 4: Call-and-Response with a Metronome
Set a metronome to a comfortable tempo (e.g., 120 BPM). For 8 counts, execute a simple pattern (e.g., shuffles). For the next 8 counts, you must create a different rhythm that fits perfectly as an "answer." It doesn't have to be complex, but it must be rhythmically complementary. This trains improvisation and active listening.
Drill 5: Phrase Extension
Take a short 2-bar phrase you know well. Now, using the same core steps, expand it to 4 bars. Add a turn on bar 3. Change the ending. Add a dynamic shift (loud to soft). This teaches you to think in complete musical sentences, not just steps.
The Next Beat Awaits
Progress at the intermediate level is a choice made every day in the studio. It's the decision to drill slowly, to listen critically, and to challenge your rhythmic comfort zone. These drills are your tools. Consistency is your method. The result? Not just a better tapper, but a more musical, confident, and expressive dancer. Now, go make some noise.
Keep tapping,
The Tap Lab Community
