Five Stroke Roll

The five stroke roll is pretty straight forward. You start by playing an alternating four-note double stroke roll led with your main hand. You follow this with a single stroke as the fifth note. Then, you alternate, and play the exact combination of notes but leading with your weaker hand instead.

As you get to higher speeds, you’ll start bouncing the doubles off of the drumhead or practice pad. For teaching you how to play and practice the five stroke roll accurately,

The first pattern we’ll be taking a look at is a drum beat. The five stroke roll is used twice in this exercise. You can start the second one leading with your left hand. Doing so will actually make it that much of an easier drum beat to play, since you won’t have to cross your arms to reach the floor tom.

Just like we saw on exercise #1, leading each five stroke roll with the same hand. But in this case however, each five stroke roll with a double stroke on the ride cymbal to the right.

Exercises #3 and #4 take you on your first five stroke roll based drum fills. On the first drum fill below the doubles on the first five stroke roll are played between the snare drum and the hi-tom. The single stroke lands on the floor tom on count 2. The doubles on the second five stroke roll are played between the floor tom and the hi-tom. This time the single lands on the snare drum on count 4.

The next drum fill is a cool example of how to add little nuances around the drum rudiments you’re using to come up with your own patterns.