Good morning, and thanks a lot for joining me on Midnightdrummer.com today.
In this blog post, you will get to know and learn how to play one of the most interesting drum rudiments:
The 5 stroke roll!
In case, you haven't practiced this fascinating drum rudiment yet, great exercises are waiting for you!
Sounds interesting?
Let's go!
The 5 stroke roll notation
This is the notation of the 5 stroke roll rudiment:
5 Stroke Roll Notation
As you can see, the 5 stroke roll drum rudiment consists of 2 doubles (rr ll / ll rr) followed by an accented note (>):
Here's another way to practice the five stroke roll:
Five Stroke Roll played as triplets
How to play a five stroke roll in drum grooves
The basics of the five stroke roll are quite easy!
If you notice difficulties while practicing this drum rudiment, you should practice your double stroke roll until you can play an even and smooth roll.
This will help you master the 5 stroke roll too!
Here are a few ideas on how to play the five stroke roll in drum grooves:
The first one is pretty simple and this 5 stroke roll is based on 16th notes on the hi-hat. Start with RR on beat 1 followed by LL.
Five Stroke Roll drum groove
As a left-handed drummer, you only have to switch to LLRR L.
Here's another one starting on the 2 “+” of the groove:
Five Stroke Roll in the middle of a drum groove
Here'a another drum groove using a 5 stroke roll rudiment – this time notated as 32nd notes:
5 Stroke Roll using 32nd notes
How to play a 5 stroke roll in drum fills
Here are a few examples of how to play a 5 stroke roll in drum fills.
In the 1st exercise, we will apply the 5 stroke roll as 16th notes on the snare drum, starting on count 4. It ends on count 1 with a crash or hi-hat:
5 Stroke Roll drum fill
In the second exercise, I added the bass drum to the 5 stroke roll, and it looks like this:
5 Stroke Roll including the bass drum
Conclusions
All 5 stroke roll exercises on this page are meant for beginners and as an intro on how to use the five stroke roll on a drum set.
Please try to develop more and your own unique versions of this cool drum rudiment. There are thousands of possibilities, and I am sure you will find a few.
Enjoy playing drums and talk soon!
