Sidebar: open and closed

As long as I've been playing, with the people I've been around*, open and closed were understood to refer to, respectively, double-stroke, rudimental-style rolls, and multiple-bounce, orchestral style rolls. Double strokes = open, multiple-bounce = closed. That has been the modern meaning since at least the 1930s, when George L. Stone gave these definitions in the introduction to Stick Control:  

The “open roll” referred to through the book is the rudimental roll of two beats (no more) of each stick [...].

The “closed roll” [...] is the one commonly used in light orchestral playing. It has several rebounds to each stick movement...

Reading the recent collection of Stone's own published articles, Technique of Percussion, in his day there was debate about the meaning of the terms, and about roll interpretation. Evidently a good number of those older people didn't even recognize the multiple bounce stroke as a legit thing. It was controversial enough that Stone had to make a case for the multiple-bounce roll and drag— and eventually prevailed, with the definition above.  

In some older books open and closed seem to mean simply slow and fast. Rudimental drummers will demonstrate a rudiment “open to closed”, slow to fast. And Stone himself, in an early piece in Technique of Percussion refers to practicing double-stroke rolls “Open to Closed (slow to fast).” Recently we saw in Wilcoxon there are some double stroke rolls indicated as “closed” simply because they're played with a faster pulsation than another example marked as “open.” On YouTube I occasionally catch rudimental people using the terms that way today. 

I normally reserve the term roll for things that are meant to be heard as a long tone, but there's an antiquated definition that includes any fairly rapid hand-to-hand playing in a steady rhythm. So I use a third category, a rhythm form— which is an open-form roll rudiment played slowly enough to be heard as a rhythm, rather than as a long tone. You'll see that in Wilcoxon— things identified as a type of roll even when they're not meant to be played at long tone speed. 

There's enough lingering ambiguity about closed especially, that I'm getting away from using it. Usually I'll say multiple-bounce, sometimes buzz.    

Also see my All About Rolls post from a few years ago. 

* - I've been around a lot of other Charles Dowd students, and a lot of Tony Cirone students. Dowd was a also student of Cirone, and of Saul Goodman.  

A little technique video

Let's talk more about me. I just posted a little technique video in response to a forum conversation. Someone was confused about the meanings of the stroke types, and wanted evidence of my competency to speak on the subject. With that handy visual reference, let's talk a little bit about technique.

Also see my Three Bloggers post about technique, and my other long post about it. 

I do a quick demonstration of the level system stroke types, then flams, an open roll, and Swiss triplets, because that's what the cat wanted: 

 
I say all the time I'm not a technique guy, I'm not a snare drummer, I'm not a chops guy— it doesn't mean I'm not proficient. I can still do most of what most professionals can do on the drum, and more than many. What we're seeing here is my unconditioned baseline, when I haven't practiced snare drum in a couple of weeks. 

Something about those Remo pads makes me always revert to 80s power drummer mode. I don't play like that normally; it's a detriment to the playing I do on the drum set. My grip, with my index finger hanging off the stick, is roughly what Dom Famularo described (in a lesson with him ~1989) as a “power grip.”

First, notice the stroke types: full, down, tap, up. I'm more picky about these than most people. I do the strokes fast, especially the lift after the full stroke and the up stroke. Fast hand movement. You'll notice I don't lift the stick before the stroke— most people habitually lift the stick when attacking a note, even when the stick was already at the height you wanted for the next note. It's totally unnecessary, and it can't be accomplishing anything but slowing you down and making it harder to play the dynamics you want. I attack the note by directly moving the stick downward. No “here we go” lift motion. I've talked about this before.

With that full stroke I am not doing a “free”stroke, where you fling the stick at the head and catch it when it bounces back in your face. It's all wrist, my hand never opens up. My grip is controlled but light. The up stroke is also important— you have to pick up the stick. You get no assistance from surface bounce, if you're attempting some kind of Moellery/Famularo-y bounce technique. When practicing technique I always do that motion as fast as possible, regardless of the timing of the notes. The more practice you get doing a very fast lift, the more prepared you'll be for playing flam rudiments fast, and anything else requiring a fast upstroke, like a shuffle. 

On the flams, notice that I don't lift the grace note— maybe very slightly, because my hands are not real conditioned at the moment— the stick is already in position after its downstroke in the previous flam, so any lift in the stroke only makes the grace note louder than I want it. Mastering this no-lift thing was the major thing that finally gave me real control over my dynamics. 

I play the open roll slow-fast-slow, which I never do when practicing. I want to be practicing everything in time, so I'm against that in principle. I may start doing it just to see what happens, though. At the slow end I'm playing each double as two full strokes, all with the wrist. As we get into actual roll speed, there's a rebound happening, but I'm not changing my grip. I'm not opening up my hand or using fingers or anything. Just the motion and the natural flex of your hand creates those powerful doubles. At the fastest speed the doubles are getting a little crushed because my hands aren't conditioned and I'm a little tense, and my left hand seems to be slicing somewhat. Generally my stick heights are all over the place. That isn't really acceptable if you're trying to polish your technique, or are playing in a drum line, or whatever serious purpose. For day to day life as a jazz musician... whatever.   

The Swiss triplets: I feel like I haven't practiced a Swiss triplet in five years, so I'm surprised they didn't fall apart at the faster end. I don't have a lot to say about them. They're possibly good conditioning for open rolls— they'll often turn into an open roll when you try to play them faster than you're able.  

I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere, this controlled grip needs to be done carefully, so you don't stiffen up. Light grip, well articulated wrists— it's hard for a lot of people to actually move their wrist joint. Emphasis is on a fast motion, all strokes, quiet or loud, moving at the same speed. Dynamics come from stick heights, not force. 

Basic short roll studies with continuous motion

UPDATE: Download link is working!

I've got to stop putting “EZ” on every single normal-difficulty thing I post. This is an easy page of roll studies I wrote to prepare a couple of younger students to play Rolling In Rhythm, a Charley Wilcoxon etude I teach to a lot of my students. We'll also see a similar page of drag studies soon.

The main thing about this page, which is similar to the Wilcoxon etude, is that the exercises have a continuous 8th note rate hand motion, with some of the notes played as singles, and some as doubles. When you get into the upper tempo range— above about quarter note = 160— count in 2/2. So if you're playing the exercises at 160, set your metronome to 80, and count metronome pulses in 2.

Get the pdf

Basic doubles exercise

Just in case any one needs to see it written out, here is my preferred primary exercise for developing doubles, which I referenced in the YouTube open roll round up. Each note should be played as a full stroke— starting and ending with the stick raised:

Read this old post for some pointers/context. It's fairly impossible to screw up, provided you actually do the exercise, stay as relaxed as possible, and don't do anything too crazy-weird.

YouTube round up: open roll technique

It's been awhile since I've done one of these, in which I go on YouTube and comment on the things brought up by searching a basic drumming term; punishing the guilty, rewarding the innocent, and so on. Today we'll do that with “open roll technique”; I'll limit myself to actual instructional videos on playing an open roll. I'm not really a one right answer kind of guy, and there are at least some things to think about in most of the videos. We can talk about what we think is the ideal method for doing this, but the main thing is to just put in a lot of time working at it, using the better videos, and your critical eye, as guides, so your hands can figure out how they want to do it.

The first one is by Jim Chapin.  No pressure, everybody else, you just have to follow the foremost scholar of rudimental snare drum technique of the 20th century.



Chapin is a little scattered in his presentation here, but this is all stuff I use. As I see it the important thing is to moderately accent the second note, and play an upstroke at the end of the double. If you do that, and play a shuffle rhythm with each hand, from slow to very fast— about ten minutes per hand— you can develop a good open roll. Just do the exercise and don't over-think it. He also has a good method in which you do a fast, full-speed double, but starting with a slower overall motion— he does this after 1:45. My old corps director George Tuthill, a rudimental authority, advocated learning rolls this way— he didn't like the traditional slow-to-fast thing.


Next, from a site called The Beat Doctor:



I guess the verbal instruction is not terrible, but the demonstrations are weak— particularly at 1:26, where he downstrokes each note, momentarily lets the stick rebound while he's telling you to let it rebound, then goes back to downstroking. He advises against that latter technique of Chapin's above, calling it “galloping”— you can decide who's right. There is some disconnect between the different stages of the progression, and the presentation seems a little unformed.


By Jason Furman:


Decent video by a good drummer, though I don't really care for the method he ended up with. The technique he demonstrates after 1:25 is mentioned in the Chapin video as a not-preferred way to develop a roll: with an exaggerated soft-loud dynamic, and ending with a downstroke— both of which are contrary to the final product we're after— and Furman says he was unsatisfied with that technique, too. I do not dig the thing he eventually settled on, with a sort of scooping motion, which he demonstrates after 3:25— it would be easy for your average self-instructing, YouTube-using drummer to screw up, so approach with caution. I would only recommend doing that with an expert teacher (like Furman) who can guide you through the process.

To some this will be the ultimate in nit-pickery: it bothers me that at one point he is in playing position with the sticks resting on the head, even making a little sound as he places them there— just an unthinkable no-no to me. My old professor Charles Dowd was very picky about doing things silently, and I guess I internalized that. Also, being at rest with the sticks laying on the drum head is... difficult for me. Sorry, Jason...

More after the break:

Inversions of Three Camps

So I have basically a one-track mind. Maybe a two-track mind. Three closely-related tracks. Right now it's all  the Elvin waltz and Three Camps. What we have here is a little thing I improvised while playing the latter on the drums- it's an easy way to get a little more mileage out of it. What I've done is simply to offset it by one 8th note (or one triplet partial, if you're thinking of it that way) each time through; so the first time is the piece in its regular form, then it is displaced so the primary accents fall on the middle note, and then the last note of the triplet:

I've written it with the modern fp long roll at the end, rather than with the traditional ending. I think this is most effective played on the drumset, with the hihat on 2 and 4, and the bass drum either doubling the accented notes, or playing (lightly!) on 1 and 3, or on all four beats. You can also play the accented notes on the cymbals. This is easy enough that you should be able to toss the print out after two or three times through it.

Get the pdf

MD column: Alternative open roll stickings

Here's an interesting piece from that same old Modern Drummer from 1977. The writer, Mickey Earnshaw, proposes a set of alternate roll stickings, using the RLLR/LRRL paradiddle inverion or the RLLR/RLLR sticking in place of the traditional mama-dada sticking. This allows a stronger attack at the beginning of the roll, and easier (and hipper) movement around the drums. The author stresses getting an even sound out of the body of the roll, but a loose execution will also give these a nice shape:

Get the pdf

How we used to learn the open roll

I just got a very nice note from Jim Buckley about the following comment of mine from the Drummerworld.com. Jim is a major figure in corps- he marched snare with Ghost in one of the greatest drum lines in history- the early 60's Boston Crusaders, was an instructor for the 27th Lancers in the later 60's and 70's, and a DCI judge, among other things. I can't speak for him, but he was enthusiastic ("Ghost would be proud of your literary treatment of experiencing the long roll, the intro to percussion trauma.")- so I guess the way I describe it- as a pretty miserable but effective process- is the way it's really supposed to go, more or less. So here we are:

The way I learned the open roll- from 70's Santa Clara Vanguard guys and the corps legend Bill "Ghost" Linen- was pretty brute-force and unscientific, but definitely worked. We used to do doubles single-handed, slow to fast, in a triplet rhythm (leaving out the middle note), taking about 10-15 minutes per hand.

...and repeat.

You start out doing full strokes from the wrist; your back fingers are relaxed but always on the stick. As you get a little faster, you follow through on the second note of the double with a little arm lift from the elbow- your forearm raises with the rebound after the second note and drops on the first note of the next double. As you increase the speed, you play lower and shift from primarily two wrist moves to a single forearm move with a little wrist assist; if you started out with very open back fingers, you also close that up somewhat (again, at no point in the process do your back fingers leave the stick).

At some point, you will encounter the "break" where it's too fast to play the notes individually, but you can't quite make a good sounding double happen yet. You'll start feeling out of control, and that will generate tension at first. By the end (at well over 200bpm) you'll definitely feel like you're just hacking away at the drum with your forearm. Even though it feels like you're just punishing yourself, it's important to go through this part of the process- you need to put your hands in that zone so they can learn to adapt. The precise means of navigating the break was never explained- that's wilderness you need to pass through on your own.

Once you can make it over the break without losing it, and your doubles at the fast end sound clean and solid, you can practice shifting some of the forearm move back to the wrist, if you want.