PAS #2 · Roll rudiments
Single Stroke Four
4 main strokes over 1 beat. Read it, hear it, and slow it down until it is even.
RLRL
Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are the quiet grace notes of a flam or drag.
What the single stroke four is
Four alternating single strokes packed into one beat, with the accent on the last note — a burst of single strokes rather than a sustained roll.
How to practice it
- Think of it as a short burst that lands on the accent, not four equal notes — the first three lead into the fourth.
- Start each group with the same hand at first, then alternate the lead once it is even.
- Play it slowly against a metronome click on every beat so the accent lands exactly on the next count.
Where it leads
The single stroke four belongs to the roll rudiments family, and it feeds directly into the single stroke seven and fast single-stroke fills around the kit. Get it even at a slow tempo before you move on — every rudiment built on top of it inherits whatever unevenness you leave here.
Reading the notation above
Both hands play the snare drum, so every notehead sits in the third space of the staff and the sticking letters underneath tell you which hand plays which note. Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are grace notes. There are no grace notes in this rudiment, so every note is a full stroke. The marks above the staff are accents: hit those notes harder. Full details in the drum notation guide.
Rudiment data last updated . Every diagram here, in the printable PDF and in the chart image comes from one dataset, so the paper and the screen cannot disagree.