Music Lesson: Using the Double Stroke Roll as a Fill

Hello, welcome back!

In the last video, we learned the double stroke roll. Today, I'll show you a couple of ways to use it as a fill, which can sound a bit more interesting than just the plain old technique.

Utilizing the Toms

We've got these toms here, so we may as well use them! Here's what we're going to do:

• Beat One: This will remain exactly the same.
• Beat Two:
  • Move your right hand to the floor tom and play 2e.
  • Then move your left hand to the rack tom and play and A.

This will sound like:

One E and A. Two E and R.

Beats One and Two

• Beat One: Exactly the same.
• Beat Two: Move the right hand to the floor tom.
• Then move the left hand to the rack tom for.

So, beats one and two will sound like:

(Beat One) ... (Beat Two) ...

Beats Three and Four

• Beats three and four will be exactly the same as beats one and two:

Three E and A. Four E and A.

Putting It Together

So now we have:

• Beats One and Two
• Repeated for Beats Three and Four.

That's your fill!

Practicing the Fill

Let's try it with our quaver. Beat number one will go like this:

• If you feel like putting a crash cymbal after the fill to get back into the beat, feel free, it sounds great!

Important Tips

• I cannot emphasize how important it is to stay relaxed while doing this.
• Practice it slowly, almost painfully so.
• There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing something slowly and actually getting it right.
• Once you've played it slowly, you can start to speed it up.

And then, you know, you might hit a point where you can't play any faster. That's good! This means you've got something to practice.

Final Demonstration

Let's use that as a fill one more time. Crash it after the fill, and we'll come back with a beat to do the whole thing again.

I'll demonstrate it for you once, and then you can practice it yourself.

Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you in the next video, hopefully soon!