Three Camps in 6-stroke rolls

For awhile I was campaigning to get this RLLRRL sticking called “Swiss sixtuplets”, based on an overheard conversation from drum corps days, when George Tuthill and Alan Kristensen, two corps legends, were talking about rudiments. George was my corps director and Alan was the drum line instructor. George mentioned that Swiss rudimental drummers routinely played sixtuplets this way, instead of as singles. I haven't found any evidence of that being the case, but I wanted to try to force a piece of my personal lore into the drumming literature anyway.

Whatever: this is a companion for the recent Three Camps in paradiddle-diddles; taken together they're an opportunity to really smoke your major sixtuplet stickings. You should be able to do these fast.

Normally when playing this rudiment I accent both of the singles— the R at the beginning and the L at the end; doing that here messes with the integrity of the piece. Accent that trailing L lightly, if you must.

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CSD! listicle: seven useful rudiments

People always seem to want to know what's the deal with rudiments, what do you use them for, and which ones are the best, coolest, most valuable. So here I'll just shotgun some of my favorites:

Four-stroke ruff

Just a super-useful embellishment. Indispensable when playing brushes. A proper, classically-executed 4SR is three very soft grace notes and a main note, played as tight as you can make them— it should not sound like a rhythm. On the drums we have more freedom with them. You can also do them rock & roll style, and make a 16th note triplet out of them, a la Neil Peart. And you can put them around the drums to make a lick that was very popular in the early 70's.


Six-stroke roll

Either 16th note or sixtuplet form. Hip, and fun to play. Steve Gadd plays them a lot, as does Dave Weckl.

Here's how they are played, and how they are usually written in 16th note pulsation form— a Stewart Copeland-like thing is to play these on the hihat:

Paradiddles — first inversion

It's just a hip rudiment. It's all over this performance, which basically defined modern fusion drumming— just move your right hand to the cymbal or hihat, and add bass drum. You can also mix up the accents between the two single notes. Useful for sambas.


Flamacue

This very old-fashioned rudimental flourish happens to be very good for getting your shuffles together.

Continued after the break:

Survival chops: six-stroke rolls

Or as I usually call them, “Swiss” sixtuplets— that's my own coinage, based on  an overheard  conversation between two drum corps legends, George Tuthill and Alan Kristensen, who were my corps director and percussion instructor in 1984-85. George was mentioning to Alan that Swiss rudimental drummers play sixtuplets not as singles, as Americans do, but with the RLLRRL sticking. I don't know if that's accurate, or even if I heard him exactly right. It doesn't matter; I still call them that. Usually in the US they're referred to as six-stroke rolls,

I guess we'll put this in the old “survival chops” series; these are very easy to play, and fun, and you will quickly come to rely them as a primary go-to lick for soloing and more dense fills.

Hopefully the formatting isn't not too hard on the eyes. When using these on the drumset, try catching a cymbal on some or all of the accents, along with the bass drum. A hip, fusiony lick of Dave Weckl's is to play the second double in the pattern on the bass drum. Have fun.

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