Single Stroke Roll
Strict alternation. The foundation of everything else and the hardest to make truly even at speed.
RLRLRLRL
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Drum Rudiments
The 18 rudiments worth knowing, each with its sticking written out and playable at any tempo. Slow them down until they are even, then use the speed trainer to climb.
18 rudiments Audio at any tempo Full sticking No signup
Start with these four
Double Stroke Roll
Two strokes per hand. The rebound has to do half the work or your speed ceiling stays low.
RRLLRRLL
Single Paradiddle
RLRR LRLL. Two singles and a double, which flips the leading hand every group.
RLRRLRLL
Paradiddle-diddle
RLRRLL. Six notes, so it sits naturally in triplets — the go-to fast fill sticking.
RLRRLL
Made with Drumloop AI — describe a beat and hear it in seconds.
Generate drum loops with Drumloop AIHow to practise rudiments
- Pick one rudiment. Learning three badly is worse than learning one properly.
- Set the tempo slow enough that every stroke sounds identical — usually slower than feels necessary.
- Play it for a full minute without stopping. Consistency over time is the actual skill, not peak speed.
- Raise the tempo five BPM and repeat. Any unevenness means drop back to the last clean tempo.
Roll rudiments
Single Stroke Roll
Strict alternation. The foundation of everything else and the hardest to make truly even at speed.
RLRLRLRL
Double Stroke Roll
Two strokes per hand. The rebound has to do half the work or your speed ceiling stays low.
RRLLRRLL
Triple Stroke Roll
Three strokes per hand. Harder than doubles because the third note has almost no rebound left.
RRRLLL
Five Stroke Roll
Two doubles and a single accent. The shortest of the numbered rolls and the most used.
RRLLR
Seven Stroke Roll
Three doubles resolving to a single. Common as a fill into a downbeat.
RRLLRRL
Diddle rudiments
Single Paradiddle
RLRR LRLL. Two singles and a double, which flips the leading hand every group.
RLRRLRLL
Paradiddle-diddle
RLRRLL. Six notes, so it sits naturally in triplets — the go-to fast fill sticking.
RLRRLL
Double Paradiddle
Four singles then a double — six notes, so it sits comfortably in 6/8 and triplet feels.
RLRLRR
Triple Paradiddle
Six singles then a double. Eight notes, so one fits a beat of 32nds or two beats of 16ths.
RLRLRLRR
Flam rudiments
Flam
A quiet grace note just before the main stroke, played by the opposite hand. Widens the sound.
LRRL
Swiss Army Triplet
A flam followed by two more notes in a triplet — flam, right, left. Fast and lopsided by design.
LRRL
Flam Tap
A flam followed by a tap on the same hand, alternating. Builds flam consistency under pressure.
LRRRLL
Flam Accent
A flammed triplet with alternating hands — the Swiss army triplet's more even cousin.
LRLR
Flam Paradiddle
A paradiddle with a flam on the accent. Combines two rudiments and exposes both weaknesses.
LRLRR
Drag rudiments
Single Drag Tap
A two-note grace figure before the main stroke. Wider and rougher than a flam.
LLRL
Double Drag Tap
Two drags leading into a tap. A staple of traditional rudimental marching solos.
LLRRRLR
Lesson 25
A drag followed by three alternating strokes. Named for its position in an old rudiment book.
LLRLR
Single Ratamacue
A drag into a four-note triplet figure with the accent at the end. Onomatopoeic, like most rudiment names.
LLRLRL
What the sticking letters mean
R means play with the right hand, L with the left. A highlighted box is an accent — play it noticeably louder than the notes around it. Smaller, faded letters are grace notes: the quiet strokes that make up a flam or a drag, played at a fraction of the volume of the main stroke.
Left-handed players should reverse every R and L. The patterns work identically; what matters is that the accents land on your dominant hand where the standard sticking puts them on the right.
The names are largely onomatopoeic, which helps more than it sounds like it should. "Paradiddle" is para (two singles) plus diddle (a double). "Flam" is the sound of a grace note and main stroke arriving almost together. "Ratamacue" is approximately what the pattern sounds like when spoken. Saying a rudiment out loud is often the fastest way to learn its rhythm.
Every rudiment here plays back with the right hand on the snare and the left on the rim, so you can hear the alternation clearly. Accents are louder and grace notes are quiet — which is how they should sound when you play them.
The four families
| Family | Defined by | Teaches |
|---|---|---|
| Rolls | Sustained alternation, single or multiple strokes per hand | Evenness and rebound control — the foundation of speed |
| Diddles | Singles mixed with doubles in a repeating group | Hand-swapping and accent placement within a pattern |
| Flams | A single grace note just before the main stroke | Stick-height control and thickening a note without hitting harder |
| Drags | A two-note grace figure before the main stroke | Controlled bounce at low volume — the hardest of the four |
Turning rudiments into music
Rudiments practised only on a pad stay on the pad. The step that makes them useful is moving them around the kit, and there are three standard ways to do it.
Move the accents
Play a paradiddle on the snare but move every accented note to a tom. The sticking does not change and the pattern is already in your hands, but the result is a melodic fill. Move the accents to different toms on each repetition and one rudiment generates four fills.
Split between surfaces
Put the right hand on the hi-hat and the left on the snare, then play the same paradiddle. The pattern becomes a linear groove of the kind common in funk and fusion. Add a kick on the downbeats and it is a complete part.
Use them as transitions
A five or seven stroke roll resolving onto a downbeat is one of the most common transitions in all drumming. Practise the roll so it lands exactly on beat 1 of the next bar rather than trailing into it — that placement is the whole effect. Set the metronome to accent beat 1 and aim at it.
Frequently asked questions
What are drum rudiments?
Short sticking patterns that function as the vocabulary of drumming — the equivalent of scales for a pianist. The Percussive Arts Society standardised a list of forty, grouped into rolls, diddles, flams and drags. Almost everything a drummer plays, from a fill to a groove, is built from combinations of them.
What are the 40 drum rudiments?
The Percussive Arts Society's standard list, made up of 15 roll rudiments, 4 diddle rudiments, 11 flam rudiments and 10 drag rudiments. This chart covers the ones that appear most often in real playing rather than all forty — learning these thoroughly is more useful than a shallow pass over the complete list.
Which rudiments should I learn first?
Single stroke roll, double stroke roll, single paradiddle and flam, in that order. Those four cover the underlying techniques — alternation, rebound control, hand-swapping and grace notes — that every other rudiment recombines. Get them genuinely even before adding more.
How long should I practise rudiments each day?
Fifteen focused minutes beats an hour of unfocused repetition. Pick one or two rudiments, play each for a solid minute at a tempo where it is clean, then raise the tempo. Stop when your technique degrades — practising a fault embeds it.
How fast should I be able to play a paradiddle?
There is no benchmark worth chasing. What matters is the fastest tempo at which all four notes are even in volume and spacing. For most players that is considerably slower than the tempo they can technically reach, and closing that gap is the real work.
Do I need a practice pad?
It helps but it is not required — a pillow, a book or the edge of a desk all work for building the motion, and a pad is quieter than a snare. What matters far more is that you can hear the unevenness, which is why the audio playback here is set slow by default.
How do rudiments apply to the drum kit?
Directly. Move the accented notes of a paradiddle to a tom and you have a fill. Split the sticking between hi-hat and snare and you have a linear funk groove. Play a five stroke roll into a downbeat and you have a standard transition. The drum pattern library shows the grooves these turn into.
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Practise rudiments over a real groove.
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