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10 Double Stroke Rudamental style exercises

Video showing Exercise 1 & 2:

There are quite a few double stroke rudiment exercises in the 40 official drum rudiments, but none of these are in them. While the ’40 drum rudiments’ cover many of a drummers needs, in terms of practicing, there are many more double stroke exercises that are useful to learn.

The 10 rudiment – style snare drum exercises here are all involving double strokes. These snare drum exercises are all rhythms that I use quite often in my drumming, so to me they are quite essential I believe.

When learning rudiments, I was always taught that they are preparing you for possible eventualities in drumming – for example by learning and practicing the flam with different leading hands, you have prepared for using it in drum fills in songs, in a variety of situations. So to me, all of these 10 rudiment exercises are essential patterns that you will need at some point as a drummer, so to master these, will be beneficial to you for when you meet the patterns elsewhere.

Here is how all of the exercises sound:

Intermediate Drum Warm-Up – Part 1

You may also be interested in this drum book: Intermediate Beats Fills and Exercises, which focusses on Rock, Pop, Funk, and progressive styles.

Following on from the Drum Lesson Warm Up posted a few days ago, this intermediate drum warm-up is for drummers that have reached a higher level of ability (about Grade 4-6 but could be used by higher grades too).

Exercise 1 – Intermediate Snare Warm-Up

Each of the 4 lines starts with a paradiddle, then the second half changes each time. The first line is singles, the second line is doubles, the third line is 4 with each hand and the 4th line is a 3-3-2 pattern (RLLRLLRL).

Exercise 2 – Paradiddle Drum Beat with Sticking Patterns on the Drum Fill

Using the sticking from exercise 1, we change the paradiddles into a drum beat by moving the right hand to the hi hat and the left hand to the snare drum. The drum fill then borrows the sticking we used in exercise 1, from the second half of each line.

Exercise 3 – Funk Rock Drum Beat and Drum Fill working on fast double bass drum with 1 foot

A rhythmic bass drum pattern with 16th note hi hats followed by a drum fill that works on the bass drum.

Exercise 4-7

You can continue onto exercises 4-7 here: Intermediate Drum Warm-Up – Part 2.

Drum Lesson Warm Up

5 warm up exercises for the start of a drum lesson. Sticking patterns, drum beats, drum fills and beats with 4 way co-ordination.

These exercises that would be a good warm up at the start of a drum lesson or at the start of a drum practice session. Anyone from Grade 1 up to Grade 6 could use this as a warm up. It would be quite a challenge for grade 1. For a grade 6 player, they should be able to play through this quite quickly.

Exercise 1:

Snare drum exercise with a RRRR LLLL RLRLRLRL sticking pattern.

Exercise 2:

A drum fill exercise using a RRRR LLLL RRLLRRLL sticking pattern.

Exercise 3:

A 3 bar drum beat with open hi hats and drum fill exercise using Exercise 2 as the drum fill

Exercise 4:

Working on a 16th note hi hat pattern and moving that to a snare drum whilst adding a stepped hi hat to work on 3 way co-ordination.

Exercise 5:

Drum grooves focusing on 3 way co ordination and 4 way co ordination between both hands and both feet.

Reading and Playing Buzz Rolls and Double Strokes

Some snare drum sheet music writes out buzz rolls with a Z through the stem. I don’t write it like that because my software doesn’t have that feature, but many others write it my way too anyway so I’ve got used to writing using 3 slashes instead (3 slashes like this /// through a stem line like this |).

Tremolo in Other Instruments

So, the slashes through the notes are also used in other pitched instruments as a tremolo marking. Violins have plenty of tremolo, which is achieved by moving the bow back and forth quickly. You’ll hear the sound in movies where the violins sound intense and brooding by playing 1 note for ages repeatedly. See the video below for an example of this. You’ll hear this more in old programs and films such as in the original Thunderbirds series’.

Tremolo Markings in Drums (The ‘/‘ slashes through the stems)

These tremolo markings in drums can be played with precise double strokes, or with a multiple bounch technique, which sometimes yeilds more than a double with each hand, but thats ok. This article talks further about the ambiguity of multiple bouncing vs precise doubles when reading.

About the Music Sheet (featured image)

On each line that the 1st bar has what you see in sheet music and the 2nd bar of each line shows you the method of playing it. I have chosen to write slashed 16th notes rather than write 32nd notes in the second bars because that’s how I teach drummers to count their buzz rolls, by playing 16th notes and buzzing each hand. So, for a 1 beat buzz roll, you would play “R L R L” 16th notes, and each hand will be buzzed, so it will actually be something like this: RR LL RR LL, or RRR LLL RRR LLL if you play several notes with each hand. For snare drum sheet music with multiple bouncing, I encourage more bounces so it has more of a drum roll feel to it.

Here’s how to play the multiple bounce roll:

When you see 16th notes with slashes in, during regular drum sheet music especially, I would say this always should be assumed as ‘use precice doubles’ if you can manage it with the double stroke technique. For example, the hi hats may have 16th notes but some of the hits are doubled, and these would be played with a strong double stroke technique. In this Samba Funk Grooves sheet you can see that the hi hats have been written as 32nd notes, but they could also have been notated with slashed 16th notes. You can see double strokes played on the hi hat in a groove in this video:

When you see slashed 16ths on the snare drum, this means to play them as 32nd notes, with double strokes (RRLLRRLL for 4 slashed 16th notes).

This video by Ryan Alexander Bloom shows how I play all of my precise doubles. I didn’t realise it was called the ‘Push Pull’ method until I looked up videos on it! At drum college they were just taught as the ‘double stroke technique’. Please make sure to watch the full video if you want to learn double strokes properly, it’s only a couple of mins…

After letting Ryan know that his video was featured here, we arranged for him to write a guest blog post for this website, which you can read here: 3 Simple Drum and Bass Steps – How to Play, With Notation and Variations

2 Snare Drum Sticking Exercise Sheets

The first exercise sheet was written to help my drum students build up their coordination and sticking techniques for the snare drum.

The second exercise sheet was transcribed directly from this excellent Hit Like A Girl 2017 entry video by Jenn Proos. The entire ‘sheet 2’ is what she is playing up to 30 seconds. Please watch the video below to see it:

Funk Grooves – Grade 5

You’ll need to be able to read the sheet music to play these funk drum grooves.

These funky beats are versatile and can be played in various scenarios or even different styles of music.

Use these funk drum beats for some new inspiration or ideas for adding flare to basic funk beats.

The first beat adds accents on the hi hat to add some dynamic depth.
The second beat adds in open hi hats – the hi hat should be played with the right hand only (or left if you’re a lefty).
The third beat has quiet drags on the snare, slightly open hi hats and accents, and ghost note skip beats.
The fourth beat has just skip beats and open hi hats.
The fifth beat uses two hands for the hi hats, and the ones with the slashes through are doubled up using the double stroke technique.
The sixth and final beat has a similar style to the third beat.

Samba Funk Drum Grooves – Grade 8

This drum grooves sheet is good for learning to improvise in a samba funk style. It was initially written for a drum lesson as a rough guide to the kind of things that could be improvised with during a Grade 8 Rockschool song from the 2006-2012 syllabus (Sampa Samba), but this sort of thing can also be played in other songs of a similar style, or it could just be used as a general practice exercise for a drummer who is at Grade 8 or above.

Playing Tip: The fast 32nd note hi hat notes are played using the double stroke technique.

Creative Exercises for Paradiddile-diddle in sextuplet sixteenth notes

Here are some creative examples of how you can expand on the ‘Paradiddile-diddle in sextuplet sixteenth notes’ exercise 1 from Grade 7 technical exercises.

There are accents (>) underneath each line of rhythms to watch out for. There are also ghost notes (brackets around the notes), which means to play quiet taps. The diamond shape on the ride cymbal line is the Ride Bell. Play this with the shoulder of the stick to the left hand side of the bell (opposite for left handers).

Drum Solo Exercises Using Six Stroke Roll With RLLRRL Sticking

This is an exercise that can be used in your practice schedule, and can be used as drum fills in your playing. This 6 Stroke Roll rudiment (played on the snare drum) is part of the technical exercises in Rockschool Grade 7 (Alternative paradiddle-diddle in sextuplet sixteenth notes), and is a good excercise for becoming more comfortable with playing it. This six stroke roll exercise can also be used / modified for drum soloing.