4. Chicken and a Roll

Summary

The development of quality open stroke rolls are a great skill to work with on a developing drumline program. Here, we leverage our rebound stroke from 8-8-16 and our diddle practice from Double Beat into a 16th note roll exercise.

Description

The name “Chicken and a Roll” is a pneumonic to remember the exercise’s phrasing. It consists of two one bar phrases that repeats once. The first bar is a group of four 16th notes, then four 16th notes that are played as diddles. That two beat phrase repeats to complete the first measure. The second measure is two beats of 16th notes and two beats of 16th notes played as diddles.

Purpose

Applying Double Beat to Chicken and a Roll will help reinforce the technique required to play a quality open stroke roll. Students are given a check pattern (the 16th notes) and a variation (the diddled 16th notes). The goal is to ensure rhythmic accuracy between the check and the pattern, and for the outer beat (the first of the two beats) sounds the same as the inner beat (the second of the two beats) for each diddle.

When playing a check and pattern exercise like this, we adjust the technique of our check to match that of the pattern. When we play rolls, there’s always going to be an incorporation of arm movement, especially at a slower tempo. As we play our 16th note check, students should play those 16th notes with arm motion as if they were playing the roll phrase. The goal is to develop technique consistency for the purpose of this exercise.

As mentioned in the technique guide, when playing any legato stroke, your stroke initiates with the wrist. Once the wrist reaches about 90% of its flexible range, the student incorporates arm movement to bring the stick to a straight, vertical position (or other stick height based on the dynamic level being played). The stick should never go past vertical, as this encourages a “whipping” motion which impacts quality of sound.

Important: The downstroke for rolling at a slower tempo is one arm motion with two wrist motions. To state that in reverse, each note of the diddle does not have its own arm motion. The two wrist motions at a slower tempo should be “stroked out” with the intent of achieving consistent quality of sound and volume for each note. Players should absolutely utilize the rebound of the stick off of the drumhead to lessen the amount of work required to achieve this; however, they should not solely rely on the rebound — wrist motion will also be required for a quality inner beat.

The exercise is performed on a loop, with a 4 beat tap off between each rep.

Considerations

The tendency for playing diddles will be to “throw them in” and solely rely on the bounce, which results in a heavy outer beat and a light inner beat. Encourage your drummers to stroke out the inner beat while utilizing the rebound of the outer beat to create a dynamically consistent phrase.

Here are things you want to consider while running this exercise:

1. Attack: Start the exercise with a clean attack. Make sure all of the performers are subdividing vocally the last four beats of the tap off to help with a clean attack. if the attack isn’t clean, cut the exercise, and start again.
2. 16th Notes: With 16th notes, a solid attack will be beneficial, but the second beat played will set the tempo. Start off very slow, perhaps 80-90 BPM, and ensure that your students are focusing on technique and rhythmic accuracy of the check, and maintaining that through the pattern.
3. Quality of Sound: Start off teaching this exercise at forte (12″) to leverage the rebound of the stick off the head in conjunction with the wrist motion. As you see achievement in this area, you can run this exercise at softer dynamic levels — this requires more finesse and training with rebound and wrist control to achieve the same volume and quality of sound for both beats.
4. Rhythmic Interpretation: The interpretation of the double beats must be consistent from player-to-player. Make sure the diddles aren’t too closed or too open. Metrically, they should lock in perfectly within a check pattern of 16th notes being played over the exercise. If players are “throwing them in”, the double beats will be closed and rush the tempo. If the players are trying to use two arm motions, they will likely be too open and drag the tempo.
5. Release: The final pain point is the release because it’s a transition to a new hand and the end of the piece. Because of this, a drummer may try to make it extra loud by reaching higher or adding velocity, both of which can cause clarity issues on the release. Reinforce that the last beat should never be overplayed.