Paradiddle Drum Fill With Moving Accents

This free video drum lesson breaks down a paradiddle drum fill

This free drum lesson breaks down a paradiddle drum fill which moves the accents to create an interesting phrasing within that standard rudimental pattern.

So you probably know the paradiddle as a sticking pattern which consists of RlrrLrll. If you feel at a loss with rudiments, what they are, how to play them and how to use them then head over to the mini course page for lesson courses that develop your rudiment playing as well as application in musical settings.

But assuming you are comfortable with the rudiment in its basic form, let’s put it together to create an interesting paradiddle drum fill.

Grab the sheet music for this paradiddle drum fill here so you can see what we’re looking at today. On the first line you can see how we generally play this rudiment with an accent on the first note of every beat.

Usually you will play the accents on the first note of every paradiddle. This works well and causes us to alternate the accents between right and left just as our leading hand alternates between right and left. This can be seen in line one of the sheet music. As we move down to line two you will see that we are starting to displace that accent so that in the first beat it falls as usual on note one. In beat two instead of accenting that first left hand on the first note we actually accent the second not which is a right hand.

It might take some work to avoid accenting the left hand instinctively and then also to accent the second note on the right hand. Work on this as slowly and for as long as you need to.

When we move to beat three the same thing happens again. We instinctively want to accent the right hand on the first note but we must play that as a ghost note before accenting the left hand on the second note. Once again, work on this very slowly until it is comfortable.

The last beat has the standard accent on the first note, which is a left hand in this case.

Get used to playing this accent pattern on the snare drum. After a while you will start to hear the rhythmic pattern jump out and as the limbs start to work subconsciously you won’t even have to think about plying a paradiddle. You can simply focus on the rhythmic pattern and enjoy playing it. This will take a lot of practice to get to this stage.

Once you have reached this level you can start to orchestrate the pattern around the kit. The most obvious choice is to move those accents around the toms whilst keeping the quiet notes (ghost notes) on the snare drum. The third line down on the sheet music gives an example of how you could orchestrate those accents around the toms.

Watch the paradiddle drum fill video lesson below and see where you can take it.

You might also be interested in the drum less playalongs and the charts of famous songs.

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