PAS #5 · Roll rudiments
Triple Stroke Roll
12 main strokes over 4 beats. Read it, hear it, and slow it down until it is even.
RRR LLL RRR LLL
Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are the quiet grace notes of a flam or drag.
What the triple stroke roll is
Three strokes per hand instead of two. Controlling the third stroke — which wants to die away — is what makes this a genuine technique exercise rather than a longer double stroke roll.
How to practice it
- Play each group as one wrist stroke followed by two finger-controlled rebounds, so all three match.
- Listen to the third stroke of each hand — it is the one that fades. Keep it as loud as the first.
- Count triplets (1-trip-let) so the hand change always falls on a beat.
Where it leads
The triple stroke roll belongs to the roll rudiments family, and it feeds directly into triplet fills and the French-style rolls in orchestral snare music. 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.