If you want a way to greatly enhance the fluidity of your chops and make your double stroke machine gun tight, read on because this lesson is for you. This excercise will improve everyone's chops from beginner to pro. Now don't forget we're talking about how to perfect your double strokes here, but I mention chops because perfecting the fundamental double stroke will have a tremendous affect on your overall chops.
Most people are really good at playing 16th notes to a metronome on the drum pad. It is a great way to increase the speed and accuracy of your chops and learn the basic subdivision of 4/4 time. But, now it's time to graduate and enter into great new and fun way to subdivide the quarter note while practicing. Instead of playing four 16th notes for every beat while practicing your doubles try playing three 8th notes per beat. Otherwise known as 8th note triplets. If your already very familiar with these you have good head start.
Now, here is where we begin the fun and learn how to smooth out our double strokes to perfection. First you must begin slowly by setting your metronome to comfortable pace. 60 bpm is a good start. Even if you think its too slow, it's really not, because it takes as much skill to keep solid time going slow as it does going fast. Start by using single strokes to play the 8th note triplets. Every beat should get 3 hits and by beat 4 you should have laid out 12 separate strokes. This is the exercise written out:
These excersises should be played from left to right, looping back to the front and continuing again without stopping. Remember that these triplets are 8th note triplets so the space between each group of triplets will not be any bigger than the space between each individual note in the triplet itself. There might be a tendancy to play each triplet as 16th note triplets and putting a 16th note rest between each triplet group, but this is incorrect. If you were to play this excercise without the bass notes then someone that is listening blindfolded should not be able to tell that you were playing triplets because the notes should sound as a constant stream of notes that are evenly spaced. Start off with the first measure I have labeled #1. Keep playing this first measure many times until you get a feel for how the pulse of the bass feels and sounds after every 3 strokes on the snare. Make them smooth and consistent. Piece of cake, right? Well here's the real stuff! Now try the second measure labeled #2. Now, instead of playing single strokes your playing double strokes but keeping the 8th note triplet feel. If you've never done this, its not as easy as it sounds.
As you can see there are 4 different sticking patterns for the triplet pattern. You can choose any one of those 4 patterns to begin this excercise with. Learn each one of them and string them together in the order that I have them into one smooth pattern. Make sure all 12 notes from the hands are spaced evenly apart. The goal is to make it sound just like it did when you were playing single strokes. There should be absolutely no accents in this exercise. Every stroke should be consistent and smooth. This exercise is so great because, if your doubles are just a little off in timing or dynamics you will definitely hear it when playing this excercise. It is very important that you switch back to measure #1 every so often so that you constantly remind yourself exactly how your doubles need to sound within the triplet format. Listen closely how the triplets sound as smooth single strokes, and then switch back to doubles and aim to make it sound exactly the same. Once you have gotten the hang of it and can lock it down on the metronome, speed up the metronome a little and practice again. Learn to perform this basic exercise to perfection because my next lessons will be based on this very application. I will show you that this is a skill worth learning.
I'm playing the double stroke roll with triplet feel in the following video at a relaxed tempo of quarter note = 200BPM. I use the DrumometerTM to make sure my accuracy is consistent. Playing triplets at 200BPM for 10 seconds should produce exactly 100 strokes.
