Single Roll Practice

Single rolls are very simple in concept, just hit once on each hand. What can be hard about hitting drums with your right, then left, then right, then left etc?

Well, building stamina, co-ordination, timing and speed does actually take a long time and lots of practice, and single rolls are really important.

So, here are some exercises aimed to improve your single rolls. There's nothing too complicated here in terms of timing as we're only using eighth notes, sixteenths, and eight note triplets, other wise known as quavers, semi-quavers and quaver triplets if you're a traditionalist.

Below is a video going through them all and also the sheet music to download... Enjoy!

When playing these, don't rush through them and focus only on speed. The sheet says 100bpm, but only play as fast as you can accurately. The focus is on accuracy and consistent timing not speed. So only increase the tempo on your metronome once you're totally comfortable with an exercise.

Oh, and do use a metronome! You need to play to a click to make sure you are doing things correctly.