help with open stroke roll!

Xiwaka

Junior Member
hi! I leave you a video which i´m doing some stick tricks. i learned to play rudiments all by myself, however, a friend of mine told me that i do not play correctly the open stroke roll. i think that´s true, i don´t play the accent on the second note and i think i´m probably doing a closed double stroke roll.
can anybody help me? thanks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmhWAu66jNU
 
There is no such rudiment as the open stroke roll. To play a rudiment 'open' means that you can hear the various strokes, it is slowed down and there is space between the strokes. To play a rudiment 'closed' means that you cannot hear the individual strokes, it is faster. If you are talking about the open double stroke roll, this rudiments can take years to develop properly. I would recommend you get with a good teacher.
 
Ken, I don't think English is his first language, and it seems to me he's talking about a double stroke roll. Thus the question about accenting the second stroke.

The term "open roll" is used in Stick Control (and other places) to describe a double-stroke roll and differentiate it from a "closed roll" or buzz/press roll.

To Xiwaka: If I understand the question, you don't need to accent the second stroke of the roll for it to be an "open roll", however, that's how many people practice them to build control of the second stroke/bounce so that the two notes are even when playing it under regular conditions.
 
Yeah, I'm really given him the business. :) But I think part of it is that he has not learned the rudiments with a qualified teacher.

I would recommend Tommy Igoe's new video, Great Hands for a LIfetime. It has a section that goes into the double stroke roll and its variations.
 
Yeah, I'm really given him the business. :) But I think part of it is that he has not learned the rudiments with a qualified teacher.

I would recommend Tommy Igoe's new video, Great Hands for a LIfetime. It has a section that goes into the double stroke roll and its variations.

I just saw the preview of Tommy's video. It looks very good.

To Xiwaka - it seems like you are spending a lot of time with tricks and less time practicing the fundamentals. In other words, it looks better than it sounds. But you seem to have some good control - and you obviously have committed some time to practicing. I agree with Deltadrummer. Find a good teacher who will work with you on the fundamentals. It is very difficult to rely solely on an internet forum for technique. You really need someone to be there with you, up close - correcting and guiding you.

And Bookma's take on the accents is right on. Good advice.

Jeff
 
An open stroke roll actually is another name for double stroke roll, where closed roll means buzzed. It is indeed also used as open-closed-open referring to slow-fast-slow. It's always sad to hear someone play a double stroke roll breakdown and then buzz when going fast, it's supposed to remain an open roll the whole time.

For improving your doubles it's ultimately a matter of finger control on the second stroke. Play the following 16th note exercise as full strokes the whole time and go no faster than you can play with relaxed rebounding strokes:

rrllrrllrrllrrll rllrrllrrllrrllr llrrllrrllrrllrr lrrllrrllrrllrrl
 
Either way, continuing with double strokes or going into a multiple bounce roll, is a standard practice for the execution of the double stroke open to closed roll.

The chief concern with a double stroke roll is that both of your strokes are the same, neither is accented, not the first nor the second. In order to achieve that, each stroke must be executed from the same stick height with the same amount of force.

A good exercise for this is to take one stick and use it as a guide to measure where the other stick comes up for the first stroke and then allow the stick to come up to that height again for the second stroke. You should hear click - click. If not, your roll will be uneven. It is as simple as that.
 
ok, when i sayed closed stroke roll I meaned a buzzed. my doubt is about getting speed with the open double stroke roll. when I play fast, my fingers are not capable to follow the bounce of the stick, so i have to buzz and then my fingers don´t control de stick anymore. That´s what happens to me in the video.
 
ok, when i sayed closed stroke roll I meaned a buzzed. my doubt is about getting speed with the open double stroke roll. when I play fast, my fingers are not capable to follow the bounce of the stick, so i have to buzz and then my fingers don´t control de stick anymore. That´s what happens to me in the video.

Start slowly and take the tempo up a notch at a time, ensuring that your strokes are even-sounding (or you can accent the second stroke). When you find your "breaking point" - i.e. where you can no longer control the second stroke and need to buzz, drop the tempo slightly and stay there for a long period to build endurance at that tempo. I recommend at least 5 minutes. In fact, I use something like Bill Bachman's suggestion almost every day. Work your doubles up to your breaking tempo for a week or so (you may have days when you have to drop the tempo further to keep things even and in control) and then try to push past that tempo. Work in increments of 2 - 4 BPM and listen carefully for evenness. Stay relaxed at all times.

There is nothing more counterproductive than continuing to race on past that point using poor technique or buzzing - you're simply practicing a lack of control. Get control and slowly work your way up.
 
There is no such rudiment as the open stroke roll. To play a rudiment 'open' means that you can hear the various strokes, it is slowed down and there is space between the strokes. To play a rudiment 'closed' means that you cannot hear the individual strokes, it is faster. If you are talking about the open double stroke roll, this rudiments can take years to develop properly. I would recommend you get with a good teacher.

Come on man, seriously? Hes talking about an open roll. A double stroke roll. And opening something doesnt mean playing it slower. And who cares?

To the OP: Work slowly, very slowly, and try and accent that second stroke. Then start moving to higher and higher tempos and leveling everything out. You want to even strokes. Check it against a single stroke roll. So try going RLRLRLRL RRLLRRLL RLRLRLRL RRLLRRLL and try your best to get as even and consistent a sound as you can. Slowly is the key. Dont just rely on flopping the stick down, get your fingers involved, but be comfortable and dont tense up. Delta is right about the last sentence, find a teacher so you can work it out. You dont wanna get hurt.
 
You want to disagree but don't get all huffy with me.

What I gave was a way to describe it. When you teach, you need to find ways to describe things to beginners, ways that they can get it. When you have over a decade of experience teaching, and teaching beginners then I'll take what you say seriously,

And yes when you are playing an open to close roll, you do "slow it down'" that is the key. and when you close it up, you do speed it up.

I don't know if the concept of open stroke roll is something that is dealt with specifically in corp drumming, but I have not heard it. I took the time to describe what it means to open up a roll. I took my time out of my day.
 
You want to disagree but don't get all huffy with me.

What I gave was a way to describe it. When you teach, you need to find ways to describe things to beginners, ways that they can get it. When you have over a decade of experience teaching, and teaching beginners then I'll take what you say seriously,

And yes when you are playing an open to close roll, you do "slow it down'" that is the key. and when you close it up, you do speed it up.

I don't know if the concept of open stroke roll is something that is dealt with specifically in corp drumming, but I have not heard it. I took the time to describe what it means to open up a roll. I took my time out of my day.

I'm with you Ken. Never heard of an open roll. I have come across an "open ended" roll for a drum line which means to play as fast as the slowest drummer will allow.

For the OP, to put concisely what everyone has said. The double stroke roll is 2 dimensional so both dimensions have to be practiced. One dimension is to evenly play every stroke in time. A common practice for beginners, and I hear some in your playing, is the 2 strokes of the double are quicker then the time between changing hands. That can be a cool sound when used but it's not a good double stroke roll when unintentional. The second dimension is controlling the accents of each stroke. As Deltadrummer described, every stroke should be even, and the best way to control that is with awarness of even stick height and force. Oddly enough, the best way to practice even force, is to practice accents. Practice you doubles accenting every third and then fifth stroke. It's all about control, and this is the best way I know of to obtain that control. Eventually you should be able to accent any stroke at will, at any time. When you can do that, you have total control, or as close as you can get, of the double stroke roll. This will actually this will come fairly quick. Then you work on speed which will take much more time. The rest of your drumming life.
 
Good advice. Tommy Igoe goes over all this in the DVD: rebound strokes, rebounds with accents, rebound triplets, triplets with accents, double stroke rolls, singles and doubles. Seems for 20.00 from Amazon, this guy would get a lot of use out of it.
 
I'm very surprised that you guys have never heard of the "Open Roll".

The introduction to every copy of Stick Control I've ever owned speaks about it, and it's referred to as such throughout the book.
 

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Most drummers/percussionists I know haven't studied out of Stick Control. For someone to just assume that if you're a drummer, it means you must have studied from this book is a pretty unfair call. However, most drummers/percussionists I know (that read music) HAVE a copy of the P.A.S. rudiment sheets that they learned from:

http://www.paulwertico.com/articles/rudiment.pdf

...and on this sheet, it says "double stroke open roll". I, myself, just assume that drummers who are well-learned in their craft know the terminology and their rudiments, but there are many who don't. Usually, they are the ones who are self-taught, as teachers and books and videos tend to include these bits of information.

Somebody could be the world's best drummer and they may not know what a pataflafla is. Not likely, but it's possible. Just sayin'...
 
Most drummers/percussionists I know haven't studied out of Stick Control. For someone to just assume that if you're a drummer, it means you must have studied from this book is a pretty unfair call. However, most drummers/percussionists I know (that read music) HAVE a copy of the P.A.S. rudiment sheets that they learned from:

http://www.paulwertico.com/articles/rudiment.pdf

...and on this sheet, it says "double stroke open roll". I, myself, just assume that drummers who are well-learned in their craft know the terminology, but there a many who don't. Usually, they are the ones who are self-taught, as teachers and books and videos tend to include these bits of information.

Somebody could be the world's best drummer and they may not know what a pataflafla is. Not likely, but it's possible. Just sayin'...

I didn't assume anything on behalf of all drummers. I've had contact both with Ken and Vincent in the past, and figured from comments they've made that they were familiar with Stone's work. Deltadrummer studied with Morello and Donv has a fairly good grasp of the history of rudimental stuff and we've spoken of Stone at length. So my comments were directed to them, and not all drummers -- as the "you guys" might have given away. Did I assume wrongly? Looks like it. Oooops! Unfair? I don't know about that.

Furthermore, I made reference to the Open Roll being referred to that way in Stick Control (and other places) in my first post. So to continue on as though it isn't an accepted piece of terminology, when it is used in perhaps the most widely known book in the percussion world, seems odd, doesn't it? Your claim about the PAS Rudiment sheet is unverifiable, though suspect from my experience. I happily learned all my rudiments and had never seen a PAS rudiment sheet until a few years ago. In my lifetime, the bulk of drummers and percussionists I've had contact with -- at the very least -- know about Stick Control if not own a copy. Some have even broken the binding. Different experiences lead to different assumptions. BTW, if we're talking about assumptions, recall that the PAS is largely an American-based organisation. We're not all Murrican.... :) So, the point wasn't that it was the only way to refer to the roll in question, but that it was a way to do so, in order to understand the OP's question and help them.
 
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Bookma,

You have corrected me and I should have known better. In my defense, I was weened on and used the terms open and closed "stroke" rolls, but that's not an excuse for not knowing Stone better then what I've shown here. A sincere thanks for the correction.

But now for PAS, best I pass! ;)
 
Bookma,

You have corrected me and I should have known better. In my defense, I was weened on and used the terms open and closed "stroke" rolls, but that's not an excuse for not knowing Stone better then what I've shown here. A sincere thanks for the correction.

But now for PAS, best I pass! ;)

Hahaha! I suppose I should've mentioned all the guys I know who would burn anything related to PAS on sight.... Well, the few....or at least the one... :)

And no need for a defense. I'm not "correcting" you, mate. I was genuinely surprised that the term wasn't known by a couple of you. It's not that big a deal, really.
 
So my comments were directed to them, and not all drummers -- as the "you guys" might have given away.

When you said "you guys", you didn't specify in any context that you were referring to just 2 people participating in the thread. Rather, "you guys" seems to be more of a blanket statement, referring to everybody participating in the thread. I apologize if that seems an irrational thing to think, and sorry I can't read your mind...

Your claim about the PAS Rudiment sheet is unverifiable, though suspect from my experience. I happily learned all my rudiments and had never seen a PAS rudiment sheet until a few years ago. In my lifetime, the bulk of drummers and percussionists I've had contact with know about Stick Control and/or own a copy.

It sounds like we come from different worlds. I studied drum set and classical percussion at a university for 4 years, and the P.A.S. sheets are EVERYWHERE. (Picture an abandoned ghost town with tumbleweed and a single tattered piece of paper blowing around the town. Chances are good that it's a P.A.S. rudiment sheet!) Could just be a Northwest thing, though...??? Of course, Stick Control is/has been a part of my development too, but not so much as a staple requirement in my course of study, but as an accessory that comes in handy in warming up your hands/coordination before actually practicing something musical. It's a means to an end, just like practicing (or "practising", as Stone puts it...) your rudiments.
 
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