Mastering Double Strokes
here are a few tips on mastering your double stroke rolls.
1)Single motion- many of my students make the mistake of playing the double stroke on each hand with double motion of the wrists. no doubt it is called a double stroke roll but the efficiency of it really is lost compared to the single stroke roll if there is a double motion being played with the wrists during the double stroke roll. what you would want to aim for is to have a single motion of the wrist for each double stroke while ensuring the right push-pull technique with the fingers.Just imagine, if you were to play a single stroke roll, but each stroke sounded like two, you'd make a pretty mean roll!
2)Stick height-When you are playing the double stroke roll, ensure that the stick height of the rebounds are the same. this would ensure that your strokes are even.
3)Positioning of the rebounds- a lot of my students make the mistake of playing the second stroke of the double stroke naturally on another location on their playing surface. what i mean is that when they play the rebound, they do not control the sticking and it naturally bounces of to another location on the surface. what you should be concentrating on after you master the push-pull technique is to practice playing your first and second stroke on the same point. this would also make it easier for you to gauge the stick height when you are aiming for sound consistency.
4)Accent the second stroke-when you are practicing the double stroke roll, ensure firstly to start at a slow tempo and build it up to speed gradually. one of the most important points that you have to note is that you need to accent the second stroke of your doubles. if you master this technique, you would have a double stroke roll that has a demi-semiquaver feel at a faster tempo compared to a semiquaver feel. moreover, once you can master this technique, you will not have difficulty accenting the first or the second stroke even at faster tempos.
