Backwerd Rhythm Shop
Classroom-ready percussion tools.
Thirteen free percussion web apps, step-by-step guides, lessons, and eleven printable theory posters are live now — built by a percussion educator for directors, students, and performers.
What’s here
Three things, kept separate
Live now
No accounts, no downloads, no cost. Open a tool on any device and start practicing.
Live now
Printable guides, reference cards, and classroom tools designed for practical rehearsal use. These downloads stay free.
Live now
Step-by-step guides and teaching sequences help educators and students put each tool to work.
Free web apps
The tools are already free
Every app runs in a browser with no account, no download, and no cost — on a phone, a tablet, a Chromebook, or the projector in the band hall. The catalog covers timing, rhythm, sticking, rudiments, keyboard percussion, and timpani, grouped by the job you came to do.
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Keep time
Pulse, tempo control, and internal timing
Pulse Pocket · Tempo Ladder · Click Drop
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Read and build notation
Grids, counting, and notes on the staff
Grid Board · Rhythm Repper · Count It · Eight Time · Staff Spot
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Train your hands
Sticking, rudiments, and controlled repetition
Stick Lab · Rudiment Room
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Learn the instruments
Keyboard geography, scale paths, and timpani setup
Mallet Board · Circle of Fourths · Scale Trail · Mallet Map · Drum Map
Free resources
Start with the Theory Reference Posters
The Free Resource Library is open with the Theory Reference Posters, an eleven-poster music theory series written for percussionists — from notes and rests through the grand staff, tempo, and triplets. Public resources will always be free.
Notes & Rests
Tempo Terms
The Grand Staff
Free lessons
Every poster has a lesson behind it
Each of the eleven Theory Reference posters has a written lesson on this site, drawn from the same notation the poster uses — plus a printable worksheet with its answer key, and two timed plans for the teacher. No account, no download, nothing to buy.
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Read it
11 lessons live
Note names, note and rest values, sixteenth rhythms, rhythms in three, the staff, dynamics, tempo terms, rolls, time signatures, the grand staff, and triplets.
Browse the lessons → -
Print it
Sheets and answer keys
A student worksheet and a matching key for every topic, laid out for letter paper and ready to photocopy.
Find a worksheet → -
Teach it
22 plans · 45 or 20 minutes
A first-teach plan and a review plan per topic — every block timed, with the material it needs and what counts as proficient.
See a plan →
For teachers
Ready-to-assign teaching sequences
Teaching Sequences turn the free apps into ordered progressions you can send to students. Each step keeps the practice conditions clear; the stated gate describes the assignment, while you still evaluate playing where the app cannot hear a student.
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Major Keys
8 steps live
Build key-signature and scale fluency through a playable progression in Scale Trail.
Open Major Keys → -
Keyboard Reading: Treble Clef
10 steps live
Move deliberately through treble-clef note naming with Mallet Map.
Open Keyboard Reading: Treble Clef → -
Counting Rhythms
10 steps live
Build rhythmic vocabulary and independence one defined challenge at a time.
Open Counting Rhythms → -
Rhythms in Three
6 steps live
Read a bar of three — 3/4 in Count It, then the eighth takes the beat in Eight Time.
Open Rhythms in Three → -
Reading Stickings
10 steps live
Read real notation, apply sticking rules, earn local badges, and submit privacy-safe LMS exit tickets.
Open Reading Stickings →
Future additions
There is no storefront right now
The public site is focused on the free apps, lessons, guides, and resources that are available today. If a paid catalog is added later, it will appear here with clear pricing and a real checkout.
Praxis Percussion
A separate workspace for percussion work
Praxis Percussion is Backwerd Rimshot’s professional platform. Praxis Tech gives independent percussion techs one private workspace for clients, bookings, service records, notes, recaps, and invoices. Backwerd Rhythm Shop’s free apps and resources remain separate, account-free, and useful on their own.
Backwerd Rhythm Shop is the percussion-focused app and resource studio from Backwerd Rimshot, LLC — practical tools designed by a percussionist, for percussionists.
More about the shop →