PAS #18 · Diddle rudiments
Triple Paradiddle
16 main strokes over 4 beats. Read it, hear it, and slow it down until it is even.
RLRLRLRR LRLRLRLL
Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are the quiet grace notes of a flam or drag.
What the triple paradiddle is
Six single strokes then a double, eight notes per group — the same idea as the single paradiddle stretched to fill two full beats of sixteenths.
How to practice it
- Six singles then a double — say "pa-ra-pa-ra-pa-ra-did-dle" to keep your place.
- Accent only the first note of each group, and keep the diddle as soft as the singles.
- Move the accent around the toms and it becomes a long, flowing fill.
Where it leads
The triple paradiddle belongs to the diddle rudiments family, and it feeds directly into longer sticking patterns and linear fills. 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.