Six-Stroke Roll Intro Drum Fill

Really short one today — the six-stroke roll!

If you're familiar with your rudiments (and you should be!) this is an easy one. Yet, so many drummers, rock and metal drummers especially, seem to think that rudiments don't apply to them or the type of music that they're playing. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Like other instrumentalists that have scales they practice over and over to get fluid, fast and relaxed, drummers have rudiments. Rudiments are simply sticking patterns that we use over and over again. By practicing these and getting these patterns in our muscle memory, our hands (and feet) can perform movements quicker than our brains can even send the signals to the various limbs.

The six-stroke roll is one of the basic double stroke roll rudiments (#8 on the Percussive Arts Society's list of 40 Drum Rudiments). The pattern is RLLRRL when leading with the right hand or LRRLLR if leading with the left. It is typically played in either a 16th/32nd note feel or a 16th note triplet feel.

Below is a really short 7 second clip where I use this in the 16th note triplet form as an intro fill utilizing the snare drum and high and low toms. Accent the single strokes and ghost the diddles. Simple and effective.