Drumming Lessons

Here’s a really easy way to make your double stroke open rolls sound more powerful and even.

I learnt this technique from one of my drum teachers years ago and it helped tidy up my double stroke rolls immediately. This drum lesson has to do with accenting the second beat of each double stroke.

See, most drummers like you and me slip into the habit of accenting the first note of each double stroke – it just feels like the natural thing to do. What this means is the second stroke of each double is much softer than the first and leads to an uneven sounding roll.

When you instead concentrate on accenting the second stroke of each double, all of a sudden your roll evens out and becomes a lot more powerful.

I’m not sure if that all made sense to you or not (even I got lost somewhere in between all that) so here is a short drum video from Jim Chapin that shows you exactly what I am talking about.

Trust me, it doesn’t take long to make the change but the difference it makes to your open rolls is massive.