I’m publishing some of the rough drafts of pages from my forthcoming book, “Life’s Little Drumming Lessons”, Chapter: Sticking Theory and the Prime Rudiments.
Sticking Theory – The Tap Rolls
What are Tap Rolls? My name for any roll that begins and/or ends with a single stroke tap.
Of course the 5 stroke roll, and the 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15 and 17 stroke rolls are in the Percussive Art Society’s list of 40 rudiments. What’s missing are the 3 stroke and the 8, 12, 14 and 16 stroke Tap rolls.
But are these missing rolls really missing? Yes, but only in modern print. We have been using them all on the drum set in some context for over 100 years - especially the three stroke roll and the triplet three stroke roll, which we all use extensively. They were just never added to the military drumming rudiment tradition.
There are several very old historical printed precedents for the three stroke and the eight stroke Tap rolls, but the 12, 14 and 16 stroke rolls were my additions to this list.
How to practice this list of Tap rolls:
This was written to put the rolls in order so they can be understood in a clear, concise and sequential pattern. My inspiration for this is Alan Dawson’s Rudimental Ritual.
-Work on each roll separately at first. Next, play through all the rolls non-stop from beginning to end.
-The top line is played with the right hand and the bottom line is played with the left hand. Or vice versa.
-Notice that the first four rolls are in duple meter 2/4, the next four are in triple meter 6/8 and 12- 17 are in quadruple meter 4/4. I wrote it this way so the rolls can be played continuously as an etude without stopping; no rests. (Meters with two beats in a bar are described as duple. If there are three beats in a bar, the meter is described as triple, and if there are four beats in a bar, the meter is described as quadruple).
-Notice that each odd number roll has one accented single tap on the end.
-The even number rolls have an accented tap at the beginning and at the end.
-The accented single taps in the even number rolls in the P.A.S. list are inconsistent. The six has taps on the beginning and the end, while the ten stroke had both taps at the end. This always perplexed me. The ten stroke rolls in Three Camps were written with beginning and ending taps. I chose to go with beginning and end taps on all the even numbered rolls to make it consistent. Also odd number rolls can also be started with a single tap ala Three Camps. I will publish that page in the near future.
The Case of the Missing Three Stroke Roll
The 3 stroke roll has had many other names for centuries. It has been called a drag or a ruff. This treatise will show that it should be designated a three stroke roll in this modern era because that is how we play it.
A drag is llR or rrL The first two notes are played as softer grace notes before and close to the third note which is usually accented.
A ruff is any short single stroke roll played as grace notes before a main note which is usually accented. A three stroke ruff is rlR or lrL. A four stroke ruff sticking is lrlR or rlrL A five stroke ruff sticking is rlrlR or lrlrL, etc.
-“All short single stroke rolls are known as ruffs”. From Buddy Rich and Henry Adler in the 1942 book “Buddy Rich’s Modern Interpretation of the Snare Drum Rudiments”.
The grace notes in drags and ruffs have no specific rhythm. They are ornaments. The double in the three stroke roll is not a grace note nor an ornament. It has a specific rhythm notated in 32nd note diddle slashes on the note stem in the duple form, just like all the Tap rolls.
6 Stroke Roll = Two 3 stroke Rolls
The six stroke and three stroke page below shows that a six stroke roll played as triplets can be thought of as 2 three stroke rolls; the downbeat in version and the upbeat version. There are actually six permutations of the three stroke roll. One of the more interesting ones is #5 which is the basis of the the half time shuffle hi-hat and snare pattern as played by Bernard Purdie, John Bonham and Jeff Porcaro.
There is also on this page a comparison of the notations of the drag, the ruff and the 3 stroke roll to show their different notations.
The last exercise is the three stroke roll played as even sixteenth notes with dotted 8th note accents.
More “missing rolls and rudiments” will be published in the near future.
