A Take on Double Stroke Rolls (sound quality)

Previously I spoke of how to approach the lift, or the prep for the upcoming double stroke while mid-roll.  In this take on  double stroke rolls I want to discuss how to get the best sound quality possible...

We have to start at a slow tempo to understand the mechanics. Playing an 8th note based double stroke roll at 120 beats per minute (bpm) is a good place to start because the diddles are 16th notes and give us a good base rhythm.  This tempo gives us a chance to examine what the stroke looks like. We will still incorporate our lift technique from the other article, but also take the approach that each hand is simply playing "8 on a hand" (8's) however only playing two notes per hand. The motion of 8’s is what we are looking for.  The notes need to be the same height hand to hand. At this tempo this should be attainable. This is important to get correct now because at higher tempos it becomes much harder to fix a bad habit of different heights per hand. With that mentality we can see that double stroke rolls start as an extension, or modification of the basic 8's exercise.  One major difference between 8's and double stroke rolls is our lift after the diddles, instead of resting the stick low.

As the tempo increases, continue to put the same effort into the doubles as if they were two notes from 8's. Around 160 bpm (still playing 16th notes for doubles) start to isolate the arms and wrist and be sure to stay relaxed.  Having tension in the arms is wasted energy.  I'm not saying let your arms flair as if you were a chicken trying to take flight, but don't be so rigid and stiff that it hinders the natural motion.  NOTE: the amount of arm movement will depend on the heights (12" would imply more arm movement than 3").  The fingers start to become an important part of getting the sound quality at this tempo too.  Squeezing the fingers helps get a good sound from the second note of the double.

Moving to higher tempos from 160 bpm the wrist starts to give way to the fingers/hand and the arm as the main factor in getting the diddle space and the sound quality. The sound quality for fast rolls comes from the "arm pump" and the hand/fingers squeezing to get the diddles out in proper time. Please note that the "arm pump" is not a flailing motion but a controlled use of the arm as an extension of the stick to keep the overall motion natural and fluid. We will further examine the how of playing rolls at much higher tempos in a later article.

Here are a few ways you can build your chops for double stroke rolls.

1. Play on a pillow. This forces you to use your arm muscles for both the downward and upward strokes. Overall a good practice for beginners who need to build chops fast!
2. Play on your leg. This forces you to use your arms to both get the rebound and ALSO teaches you to control the stick more because let's face it, wailing away on your leg isn't any fun.
3. Put on a song and play flam taps. Flam taps are essentially overlapped triple strokes. Shown below are flam taps.  Chopping out to a song is great because it gives a steady beat and an indeterminate amount of time so you can't really just quit whenever. Push yourself to play through the whole song!

                           

If you have other chopping ideas to help get good "Q of S" as Tyler Dempsey would say, let us know!

~Mike