Paradiddle Potential: Beyond the Pattern

Rudiments are the building blocks to developing control over the sticks and a great way to absorb essential rhythmic vocabulary. Different rudiments require drummers to utilize an array of motions, allowing us to access a wider range of inflections and articulations. While drummers will begin learning rudiments and basic sticking patterns on just a single surface, such as snare drum or practice pad, the true potential of any pattern is realized when they’re applied to the drum set. To demonstrate some ways to map a rudiment around the drums, we’ll start with some single paradiddles.

Single Paradiddles

Single paradiddles are one of the most important rudiments a beginning drummer learns. Played as R L R R L R L L, they get your hands out of the familiar rut of simply alternating (single strokes) and reveal a way to comfortably change the leading hand while playing.

If you’ve never played single paradiddles before, start slowly on a practice pad or snare drum. In the video demonstration, it starts with single paradiddles played as 8th notes, and then as 16th notes at 60 bpm (beats per minute). Starting slowly and prioritizing accuracy over speed will help you acquire the pattern as quickly as possible.

As a Groove

Single paradiddles can very easily become the basis of a groove by placing your right hand on the hihats while keeping your left hand on the snare drum (provided you’re beginning the first beat with your right hand). Playing the pattern between two different sounds makes it much more interesting compared to playing it on only one.

To make it feel more like a groove, play the bass drum right on beats 1 and 3, and play an accent on the snare drum on beats 2 and 4. All of the other snare drum hits should be played very quietly to create some texture and dynamic depth. Be very mindful of your stick heights while playing single paradiddles as a groove, particularly the stick height of whichever hand you’re using to play the snare drum. Lift the stick higher and throw it a bit harder to play the accents, and keep the other strokes as low as possible to make them more felt than they are heard.

Alternately, the single paradiddles can be split between the ride cymbal, hihats, and snare drum to create a groove. With your right hand on the ride cymbal, your left hand will have double duty. It will play primarily on the hihats, but will also still hit the snare drum on beats 2 and 4. Although the sticking pattern is exactly the same, it’ll feel noticeably different when placed over different parts of the drum set.

As a Drum Fill

Single paradiddles also work very nicely as drum fills while utilizing more of the kit. Below are three ways to arrange single paradiddles on the drum set.

The first consists of only splitting the first stroke from each grouping to a separate drum: the single right hand strokes on beats 1 and 3 are played on the floor tom, while the single left hand strokes on beats 2 and 4 are played on the small tom. All of the other strokes are played on the snare drum. Try to keep the remaining snare drum content relatively quiet to draw more attention to the toms, which function as a sort of melody in this case.

The second arrangement consists of only moving the right hand between the floor tom, snare drum, and small tom, while the left hand remains on the snare drum. Now, the single right hand stroke on the ‘e’ of beat 2 is played on the small tom, and the ‘e’ of beat 4 is on the floor tom. Accenting the snare drum on beats 2 and 4 helps this particular arrangement blur the line between a groove and a fill. It’s got a bit more motion to it compared to the first arrangement.

The third arrangement places the first two strokes of each beat between the floor tom and small tom. Each single right hand stroke is played on the floor tom, each single left hand stroke is played on the small tom, and all of the double strokes remain on the snare drum. This fill definitely has more of a chaotic vibe to it! It strongly resembles some of the wild fills a younger John Bonham routinely integrated into his playing. Check out these three single paradiddle drum fills demonstrated in the below video!

Inverted Paradiddles

As mentioned in a previous blog post, permutations of rudiments and sticking patterns provide access to even more vocabulary and inflections. Another very common application of single paradiddles are known as inverted paradiddles, which consists of the same exact sticking, but shifted so we’ll begin from a different part of the pattern, becoming R L L R L R R L.

Standard single paradiddles contain double strokes during the 3rd and 4th positions of the pattern, whereas inverted paradiddles have the double strokes in the 2nd and 3rd positions. This small difference has a large impact on their feel!

As a Groove

Just like with the single paradiddle groove application, we can use inverted paradiddles as the basis of a groove by playing it between the hihats and snare drum. A single left hand stroke still lands directly on beats 2 and 4, allowing us to easily maintain backbeats by accenting the snare drum at those points. Also like before, all of the other snare strokes should be played very quietly to provide some texture. Just add the kick to beats 1 and 3, and the groove is ready to go!

For an alternate feel, split the sticking pattern between the ride cymbal and hihats. The left hand will still play the snare drum on beats 2 and 4, but every other stroke with the left hand will be on the hihats.

As a Drum Fill

Inverted paradiddles can be placed around the drums in ways very similar to single paradiddles. However, since the two single strokes of each grouping are at the first and last parts of the beat (instead of the first 2 parts of the beat), they have a distinct feel to them and allow for unique inflections.

The first fill entails the right hand single strokes moving between the floor tom and small tom, while the left hand stays on only the snare drum. Since the first and last parts of each beat are emphasized (the downbeats and the ‘a’ of each beat) on either the toms or snare, this arrangement has a sort of bouncy feel to it.

The second fill has a similar feel to the first, but with a few key differences. Most notably, the ‘a’ of beat 2 is moved to the small tom instead of being played as an accent on the snare drum. Each right hand single stroke remains on the floor tom, which contributes to creating a distinct melodic shape compared to the first fill.

The third fill has the most melodic motion to it compared to the other two. Again, the right hand single strokes stay on the floor tom, but the left hand singles switch from the small tom during beat 2 to the snare drum during beat 4. Do your best to keep all of those other double strokes on the snare drum nice and quiet to help the melodic content come through clearly.

Blending the Patterns

Single paradiddles and inverted paradiddles can easily be combined into longer phrases. Playing two beats of single paradiddles followed by two beats of inverted paradiddles yields a more engaging 4-beat phrase. Following the same approach applied to single paradiddles and inverted paradiddles, we can use this combination to play grooves and fills around the drums. The video below shows two basic groove applications, as well as one fill application.

It’s also possible to splice together single beats of each pattern in various orders, yielding many more possibilities than can be covered in a single blog post!

From there, trial and error will become your most valuable guide. Try embellishing the grooves with additional or varied bass drum placement, accent other parts of the patterns, and explore your own ways of mapping them around the drums to create more fills. There are countless ways to use these patterns on the drums. Ultimately, you’re only limited by your own imagination!