Drum rudiments are nothing more than rhythmic patterns. You can play around with their note values, dynamics and orchestration. They’re killer for enhancing overall hand and foot technique and can be used quite effectively within drum beats, drum fills and drum solos. The problem most students face with drum rudiment apprenticeship is knowing what to with them. Sticking with a drum rudiment on a practice pad can get boring, redundant and old pretty fast. To get you motivated with drum rudiments, Jared Falk wrote this free drum lesson to show different ways in which you can use the five stroke roll – one of the 40 drum rudiments – within drum fills.
Before tackling this free drum lesson we encourage you to watch this one. In it, Lionel Duperron breaks down the five stroke roll and teaches how to apply it to drum beats and drum fills. The patterns you’ll find within are actually easier to play than the ones from this free drum lesson. Therefore, going through that lesson first will actually help you nail the drum fills from this one way faster.
A great example of the five stroke roll’s applicability is the two-bar drum beat Steve Gadd came up with for Paul Simon’s “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.” The five stroke roll starts on the “and” of count four on the second bar and ends on count one of the following bar with a unison stroke between the bass drum and the hi-hat foot.
Hopefully, this free drum lesson will open your eyes to what can actually be accomplished with pretty much any of the 40 drum rudiments if you just use your imagination. If you’d like more ideas on how to take any drum rudiment from a pad and apply it creatively around the drum set, check the free drum lessons from the drum rudiment section on DrumLessons.com and “Expressing Yourself On The Drums.”