Single Stroke Roll | Rudiment Explanation

Onto the Single Stroke Roll Lesson.

This rudiment really is just as simple as alternating between your hands: 

R L R L or L R L R.

That said, the difficultly comes with your technique! This is one of the most underrated drum rudiments for this reason and it's very difficult to get a fast Single Stroke Roll!

Here are the points you should focus on: 

Keep your drum sticks even!

This applies in several different ways:

• Drum stick height.
• Your placement on the snare.
• The path of your stick (straight up and down).

Additionally, focus on the following points:

Keep your fingers curled around the stick, but don't grip too tight into your hand. To properly hold drum sticks, you should always have a little bit of space between the stick and your palm. You should also make sure that your fulcrum always stays in place. A fulcrum in drumming is the point between your thumb and index finger. This should always stay in place! If the fulcrum on your drum stick slips, then your other fingers have nothing else to pull against thus losing all of your power. 

Get a big full extension on your wrist. Now I don't want you to go over board, but when you're doing a Single Stroke Roll as a drumming exercise, you're giving your hands a chance to get a good warm up. You're also teaching your body what the full extension of your stroke feels like, and this is super important! If you only ever play at 50% of your range of motion, you're not learning what it feels like to get the full amount of power you have available.

This brings me to my last point, use rebound. Now this is easier said than done, but again, these are points to focus in a perfect world. My best analogy for rebound in drumming is it should be the same feeling as bouncing a basketball. You don't throw the ball down, stop it, and then pick it back up. You throw the ball down, then use rebounds force to guide the ball up, then back down.

This feeling is hard to capture, but arguably is the MOST important! When you throw the stick down, immediately bring your wrist back. Take some time to watch your hands to make sure you're poping your hands back as quickly as possible.

Take a few times to watch my playing as an example as well! Watch to see how quickly I bring my hands back.