PAS #3 · Roll rudiments
Single Stroke Seven
7 main strokes over 2 beats. Read it, hear it, and slow it down until it is even.
RLRLRLR
Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are the quiet grace notes of a flam or drag.
What the single stroke seven is
Seven alternating single strokes resolving onto an accent — the single-stroke answer to the seven stroke roll, and a common fill shape around the kit.
How to practice it
- Keep all seven strokes at the same low height and let only the last one come up for the accent.
- Count the sixteenths out loud; the accent falls on the seventh, which is easy to rush.
- Move the accent to a crash cymbal and you have the classic fill into a new section.
Where it leads
The single stroke seven belongs to the roll rudiments family, and it feeds directly into longer single-stroke fills and the single stroke roll at speed. 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.