Nine Stroke Roll

Much like the five stroke roll, the nine stroke roll is one of the 40 drum rudiments than can naturally alternate. As you can see on the sheet music below, after playing the quarter note single stroke on count 3 there’s a quarter note rest. This will give you plenty of time to play the nine stroke roll leading with your weaker hand on the next measure.

Exercise #1 is a half-time drum beat. The bass drum pattern is played on all quarter notes. The doubles on the nine stroke roll are executed on the hi-hat and the single is moved to the snare drum on count 3. Add a unison stroke between the hi-tom and the floor tom and you’re good to go.

Exercise #2 is another half-time drum beat. The bass drum pattern is once again played on all quarter notes. The kick patterns are kept fairly simple in some of the drum beats on these 40 drum rudiments free drum lessons, because the idea is to make you focus on your hands first and foremost. Master these exercises and later on you can add more complicated bass drum patterns, if you so desire.

The nine stroke roll is broken up between the ride and the closed hi-hat – right hand doubles on the ride and left hand doubles on the hi-hat. The single is moved to the snare on count 3. After the snare shot, an alternating 8th note pattern is kept between the ride and the hi-hat. This pattern is more challenging than it first looks to be.

The third drum fill on this free drum lesson is pretty straight forward. The first and third sets of doubles are kept on the floor tom while the second and forth sets are placed on the mid-tom. The single is played on the snare drum on count 3. Remember to focus on sound quality and in having a very clean sounding drum fill.

The cleaner you play this drum fill the faster it will sound. It’s better to play a pattern perfectly at slower speeds than to play it sloppily at a faster tempo. Take your time with each exercise. Learning to play drums is not a race; you have your whole life to play them. Remember that what may take one week for one guy to learn, may take you more or less time. This type of thing varies from person to person, so take it easy on you.

The last drum fill on this free drum lesson is a quite interesting one. At first, it may look like a half-bar drum fill, because of the nine stroke roll starting on count 3. But this pattern is actually a one bar drum fill that has rests on the first two counts. It also may look like the single stroke on the nine stroke roll is missing. One again, looks can be deceiving. From count 3 to the “ah” of count 4 we have eight 16th notes.