Rudimental Roll Builders

Playing open rolls with a balanced tone and clean rhythm is a major milestone when developing your drumming. In my opinion, people jump to full speed rolls MUCH too early, and miss out on the chance to integrate the physical gesture of rolls with the musical listening required for fast subdivisions. People also skip the transition from single-stroke to double-stroke rolls, limiting the development of touch , tone control, and critical listening.

These lessons are designed to build comprehensive musicianship through Rudimental drumming, and the skills involved transfer to many areas of percussion and music making more generally as well.

Embedded throughout the page are longer “Workout” videos with the same material looped at increasingly faster tempos. Use these in place of live ensemble rehearsals so you are actively cleaning to a moving target tempo-wise, then follow up with metronome practice on your own. Ideally, you’ll be playing with real people frequently as well.

Download and print this worksheet to help guide your practice. Return to it daily until you can play the entire tempo range with ease in a single sitting, especially if returning to playing after some time off. This is foundational to your health and longevity.

Download and print this worksheet to help guide your practice. This is a standard diddles-rolls breakdown. I won’t claim it’s better than anything else, but it’s mathematically organized in a way I like. Compare it to any similar material, make sure you can play anything like it with ease, then figure out what you need to run daily to maintain your fitness.