How To Perform A Double Stroke Roll
The Double Stroke Roll is one of the most important drum rudiments that you should be learning. It the second most significant rudiment (the Single Stroke Roll is the most important) and it once you have mastered it, you will notice that learning other rudiments will be easier to develop.
The Double Stroke Roll in itself is very similar to the Single Stroke Roll because of how simple it is. Nearly anyone can be playing this rudiment within two minutes of reading this article. However it is a hard rudiment to play correctly. Just like the Single Stroke Roll just playing this pattern isn’t enough, you must always be critiquing your technique and timing. You will never be finished working on this technique, even the worlds best drummers still spend time working on their Double Stroke Roll. It is so vital to your drumming success that you cant afford not to practice it regularly.
First you want to make sure you are holding the stick correctly, there are many different articles with pictures and video on the internet to help you do this. I have also written an article on the correct way to hold your drumstick.
The Double Stroke Roll
The Double Stroke Roll is very simple. The pattern is this: Right, Right, Left, Left. Isn’t that easy? There are two ways to practice and develop this drum rudiment. The first way is using your wrists for every stroke, and the second way is by using rebound.
Using Your Wrists
If you are using your writs for every stroke it is very important to keep your stick heights at the same level for each stroke. If you bring your stick up higher or lower it is going to be harder to maintain the same pitch for each stroke. Also one more tip for doing this method, once you get good at the rudiment and start to get faster and faster make sure that your arms don’t tense up at faster speeds. It is very important that you keep your arms very relaxed as you speed up. It is recommended that you learn this method first and once you feel that you have “maxed out your speed” then you should learn to do the method with rebound.
Using Rebound
Now we move onto rebound. If you are using proper stick technique you should be able to get 6-8 bounces off of every stroke. For the Double Stroke Roll we only need two bounces. We are going to start developing your rebound technique one hand at a time, don’t jump right into the rudiment. Were going to start slowly, just practice using your wrist once, letting the stick hit twice, and lifting your wrist again (to prevent a third bounce). Once you have got both hands up to a good speed individually then start to let them work together on this rudiment. RR LL RR LL
Additional Exercise Tips
Remember the same tips from above, you still want to keep each stroke equal in volume, and you want all of your strokes to hit the same small area, around the size of a quarter, on your snare drum or practice pad.
Once you get comfortable with this rudiment, try the Single Paradiddle. It is the first rudiment to break away from the RL RL pattern that the single stroke roll and the double stroke roll have.
Explore posts in the same categories: Drum Rudiments, Beginner Drumming