Dependency on Doubles

When I was first taking drum lessons, I remember my instructor really liked me working on my double strokes because he found that a lot of drummers my age would struggle with them. In the end, I think it worked out well because I have a fairly strong double stroke technique (push-pull).

However, I find that I'm so accustomed to doubles that I seldom use single strokes, and so almost all my fills are really busy. I'm really starting to hate this bad habit of mine.

Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, what did you do to mitigate it? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

unless you have a significant size drumset, wouldn't you have to rely on doubles on fills?

Suggestions? Once you identify a problem, the solution makes itself apparent. Consciously try to NOT use double strokes in your fills. Practice singles on your drums and practice your standard double stroke fills with another sticking, paradiddles perhaps?

I think you got it man, the suggestion is to play more singles, practice getting around the whole kit using just singles, it's surprising how many drummers don't put time to practice actually getting around the kit.

inneedofgrace said:

unless you have a significant size drumset, wouldn't you have to rely on doubles on fills?

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I'm lost. What does the size of the kit have to do with the type of stroke?

Pocket-full-of-gold said:

I'm lost. What does the size of the kit have to do with the type of stroke?

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I'll walk you through it Jules. In Euclidean geometry, half the radius of the gross footprint of the entire drumkit should be double the length of the stick.

AndrewLoGi said:

When I was first taking drum lessons, I remember my instructor really liked me working on my double strokes because he found that a lot of drummers my age would struggle with them. In the end, I think it worked out well because I have a fairly strong double stroke technique (push-pull).

However, I find that I'm so accustomed to doubles that I seldom use single strokes, and so almost all my fills are really busy. I'm really starting to hate this bad habit of mine.

Has anyone else experienced this? And if so, what did you do to mitigate it? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that described me a few years ago. The influence of drum corps and some of my favorite drummers had me thinking almost exclusively in terms of doubles. It was the WFD discussions on this forum that prompted me to start working on single strokes again. There's really nothing to do except practice them. On the pad for technique and on the set to get your ideas flowing.

A couple great things to practice on the set are crossovers. You can find some of the licks Buddy and others play between snare and floor tom. They look really cool and they're difficult if you're not used to them. Then there's a great around-the-drums exercise John Riley shows on this site, which he attributes to Max Roach. I found that very useful because it was so unnatural for me at first. I would have used doubles like crazy to play those patterns but being forced to approach them as singles was a real eye-opener for me.