DRUMMER CAFE - Community Forum

Hey All,

How do you guys practice 32'nd and sextuplet rolls?  I have been practing more on them recently and I am getting better.  However, I still am having problems pulling them off.  Are there any secrets related to this, or is it a matter of practice?

Thanks! ;)

Start slow and slowly build up the speed.  It's like running, no one starts running the moment they leave the womb.  Crawl first, then walk, then run.

--
Rob

Are you doubling them or playing singles?  Work on both...doubled sextuplets are one of my fav licks btw...easy and you don't hear them alot.

Get a pad and practice both subdivisions when you are just sitting around watching tv...you can get away practicing like that with those patterns.

I like to practice them the way I'd actually use them.  One sextuplet within one or two bars of time, for example.  If I practice them "back-to-back", I find I'm practicing them at a far slower tempo then I'd actually play them, and that's not much use, except as a strength exercise.

Some tips:

- Play to a metronome
- Focus on technique and playing *clean*, even if that means slowing down
- Practice exercises that use skeletons, I.e. triplets for sextuplets and sixteenth notes for 32nd notes

My suggestion is to pick a tempo you can play cleanly, pick an exercise and nail it at that tempo. Do not advance the exercise until you can nail it cleanly 5 times in a row. Do this religiously and you'll have some serious chops in just a couple months.

One thing to keep in mind is that 32nd notes and Sextuplets are nothing more than 16th notes and triplets played twice as fast.

If you slow things down enough, the 32nd notes will sound like 16th notes, etc. It's all subjective ... so don't be intimidated by them. See them for what they really are and work on them using the suggestions every has given you.

If you can't play them clean at a slower tempo, then they will sound even worse at faster speeds. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Slow, deliberate practice is THE way to master these rudiments.

Just to reword what has already been said, playing check patterns or skeleton figures is a great way to gain control over the rolls, making sure you don't rush or drag. An example of how you might do this would be to play one measure of sixteenth-notes, followed by measure of 32nd-note roll. You are just diddling the 16th notes, which makes it sound twice as fast. The same goes for the sextuplets; play a bar of triplets just before you go into the sextuplet roll.

Pick up these books:

• Stick Control by George Stone
  
• Developing Dexterity by Mitchell Peters