How to apply paradiddles to fills that GO AROUND THE WHOLE KIT!!

theuntitleddrummer

Senior Member
Can anyone give me tips or notation on fills that paradiddles are used around the whole kit because i can do it on the snare I can't seem to make a good fill with JUST paradiddles splitting with the snare, toms, and bass etc.
Thanks in Advance :)
 
Really?!?

All I ever do these days is experiment with parradiddles around the kit. Really all it takes is you sitting at the kit and trying every possible combination you can think of. Practice the crap out of the ones you like, and scrap the ones that don't sound too good to you.

Here's one I like - accents are in capitals:

R l l R L r r l

Start with the kick and a crash with the first Right, 2 left hand ghosts on the snare, an accented Right on the tom of your choice followed by a nice snare rimshot with your left. Finish off the last remaining 3 strokes as ghosts on the snare.

But seriously, you can do ANYTHING - so just go experiment.
 
This is a great topic! I really wanna know what you can do with paradiddles. They sound so cold and technical if you just apply them on the snare. Even between snare and hats they don't add much.

So how do you make the best of them? The best sounding pd to me is the inverted one: RLLR LRRL. This gives a rolling motion as you accent the first and last note of each grouping.

I found out that five and six stroke rolls have more potential to sound good. That's because there are more combinations possible and you can get more creative. A favourite at the moment is RRLRR LLRLL. It just feels good.

I also like RRL RLL.

I think putting the single strokes in the back or the middle of the figure makes the whole sound smoother, less direct than when you'd start with a single.
 
I also like to experiment with paradiddle stickings in groups of 5,7,etc

rlrrl rllrl

etc

I've come up with some nice fills canning stickings like that, randomly across the kit, in odd groupings - usually makes me sound better than I am.
 
Now this is a really good fill to do- I love doing this! you can adapt this, but all I do is play for example..............lrll on the snare, rlrr on the floor tom- then cross over hands to play, lrll on the snare with my right hand and rlrr on the floor with my left, I then cross one hand over to a tom and repeat using the snare and then the other tom and so on.

in a solo with the hand crossing and also if you accent various beats with the bass drum and and on the drums themselves- it is impressive!

Best thing to do is practice it! start slow and build the speed- then you can slip it in to many beats.

A variation may be to include- a flam on the front of each start, a drag, a 5 stroke ruff, or use the cymbals for a part of the beat

Very good for building up control and expression!
Well done for the thread- thats what we need more like this!!!!!!
 
May I suggest some alternative therapy?
Put all your books away and sit down with a practice pad

and play paradiddles accenting each note in the paradille, one at a time, after every 8 notes.

Do the same thing with double stroke rolls.

This should take a while. Maybe a year ?

Once you've internalized this and your muscle memory can do this without thinking.. playing it on the drumkit will be automatic. Just play each note on the different drum/cymbal and you're off to the races.
 
Hmmm, I really don't know how to notate it for you otherwise I could put up a whole few sheet-fulls of paradiddle/diddlediddle/double diddle etc etc etc, that I've written out over the years.

I guess a couple of simple things to start with that will at least give you some good ideas to work from are the following (now I've just got to figure out how to make this work):

Ok, so the sticking for all of these is just a straight paradiddle right? RLRRLRLL so I'm not actually going to notate it like that. I'll just put S for snare, T for tom, F for floor tom, B for bass drum and C for cymbal and bass drum together. It might make it hard to read though. I'll give it a shot eh?

TSSSSFSSTSSSSFSS
RLRRLRLLRLRRLRLL

Actually, that makes it easier right?

CSFFSTSSCSFFSTSS
RLRRLRLLRLRRLRLL

FSSSTFBBFSSSTFBB
RLRRLRBBRLRRLRBB

Try those on for size and it'll at least give you a basic understanding of ways you can incorporate them. Start slow and bring it up slowly. Don't accent any notes at first. Keep it all sounding as even as possible. Have fun!

lol! I just went and had a bit of a play with some paradiddles after doing those. Here is another nice sounding one:

FSTTSTSSTSSSSSSS and repeat FSTTSTSSTSSSSSSS. You can also simply replace the last two notes of every bar (each one of these is written as one bar of sixteenths) with your bass drum to give another nice sound to the phrase.

This one is also good: FSSSTFSSTSTTSTSS and repeat. The middle two snare notes, after the first TF, sound great replaced by a bass drum as well. Give these a go.
 
Hi
The possibility of combination are endless for both fills and backbeat/grooves. Get a recording devices and may up your own combination and listen to the playback for what sounds good. I suggest you start with paradiddle groove beats then expand to fills. Denis
 
Some great suggestions so far!

I love putting the first two hits (lr or rl) onto cymbals, then putting the double stroke onto the snare, makes for quite an intense sounding fill. Personally though I normally use paradiddlediddles for filling, I think they sound less 'chunky' than paradiddles.
 
Even incoorpirating the hihats with the snare (and bass drum! sorry Madjazz) you can create some really nice grooves. It works best though if you practice accenting different notes of the parradiddle pattern, and further to this add the parradiddle-diddle after the parradiddle and then two singles.

One I do sometimes is with my two crashes: (RC: right crash, S: snare, LC: left crash)

(RLRRLRLL)

RC S S S LC S S S

Or change the crashes for any toms!

Basically as everyone has mentioned, just have fun and mess around!!
 
You can make variations off a paradiddles and just throw them on random drums around your set.

For example, my favorite paradiddle variation taken right from Gadd's groove, "paradiddle variations," rlrr lrrl rlrr lrll (16th).

Just hit random drums.

Or one of my favorite applications of that is making a mozambique type groove off of it.

Try keeping your right hand on the Bell of the ride cymbal or the rim of of one your toms, and move the left hand randomly around the toms. At the same time, keep "4 on the floor" with Both feet.
 
If you have your paradiddles worked up to a high speed, this is a great fill to "trashcan" with...

S T FT FT T S S S (repeat)

...sounds great with the accents thrown it! Also, a similar one, starting on the floor tom:

FT T S S S S T T (repeat)

And, I'm assuming you know about Garibaldi's "paradiddle beats", right? (Right hand on high hats, left on snare, four on the floor with the kick--use all four permutations for different effects).

I also enjoy doing Steve Gadd's "paradiddle-diddle beat" as presented by Akira Jimbo in his video "Wasabi". Here's a clip of that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DcerC-JjxA
 
Hi all.

I posted a video on YouTube not exactly about playing the paradiddle around the kit (although now that I'm reading this thread, something else to add to my to-do list!), but finding examples of paradiddles in songs (or any rudiment) that we may not have noticed before. This is my first video with this subject, more to come!

The Paradiddle In Action

Hope you enjoy it!
 
Triplet paradiddles can be the next step up if you get tired of the endless variations using 16ths.

Rlr rLr llR lrr | Lrl lRl rrL rll ||

There's a good place to start. Someone also suggested playing it in groups of 5 and 7.
 
Another one I like is a repeating 6-note pattern: RLrrlF.
F= foot on kick drum.
capitals are accents.

What I like to do is do the right accent (first stroke) on a tom or a cymbal and the second on the snare, and all the non-accented strokes on the snare. This goes all over the kit and sounds great when you pick up the speed! Like Elvin.

Not strictly a paradiddle, but a rudiment-ish sticking that works really well.

Mike
 
GREAT fill ideas:

Move the accent and sticking one 16th note to the right by practicing these paradiddle patterns in order...

R l r r _ L r l l _ R l r r _ L r l l

r r L r _ l l R l _ r r L r _ l l R l

r l l R _ l r r L _ r l l R _ l r r L


Then move these combinations around the toms in both sixteenths and sextuplets. Then substitute certain accents with bass drum kicks, get creative, etc. You'll be SO inspired.
 
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