The follow up to “The Ladder” Part One? You guessed it. Part Two. In this version of The Ladder—a single stroke roll exercise we introduced last week—we add 16th note triplets to the mix. It’s good for your rhythmic control and it’s important to develop a triplet roll as well as an eighth note/16th note based roll, and that’s one of the things that this exercise will help you do. The concept is the same as in Part One: the systematic increase and then decrease in the density of the notes allows you to practice speeding up and slowing down your hands while still maintaining a steady pulse. Your hands are speeding up and slowing down, but you are still playing in time. To download “The Ladder Part Two,” as a pdf file, click on the following link: The Ladder Part Two

As a bonus, we’ve also included “Developing The Single Stroke Roll” Part One and Part Two. These exercises focus on the individual development of each hand, and then putting them together to create a roll. Basic, but important stuff for the development of the hands. Part One will help you with your 16th note roll and Part Two will help you develop your triplet based roll.

You can download the pdf of “Developing the Single Stroke Roll, Part One” by clicking the following link: Developing The Single Stroke Roll Part One

Finally, you can download the pdf of “Developing the Single Stroke Roll, Part Two” by clicking on this link: Developing The Single Stroke Roll Part Two

Hope this is helpful.

“The Ladder” is a technique building exercise created to help drummers work on the development of the single stroke roll. Download the pdf of this exercise by clicking here: The Ladder Part One

By continually moving up and down the rhythmic ladder, the drummer is forced to speed up and slow down, but all while playing precise rhythmic figures and while still playing in time. I find it an interesting exercise because it also tests one’s control over rhythmic figures that are constantly changing. As drummers, we absolutely must have control over these different figures, so the exercise is helpful on that score in addition to it’s usefulness in developing physical hand technique. The exercise is called “Part One” because it is limited to quarter notes, eighth notes, eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes, while later versions of this exercise will include more “advanced” figures.

The way to get the most use out of this worksheet is to pick a comfortable tempo to begin working and then to continually record your metronome markings as your technical facility improves. Having a log with dates and metronome markings will help you see your progress and keep you motivated.

Technique takes a long time to develop so be patient and keep working hard…..the work WILL result in progress…