EASY! 5 Stroke roll Drum Rudiment

Keno Hellmann    Updated on 03 Sep 2023

Are you ready to learn another great drum rudiment?
Today, it's time for the 5 stroke roll rudiment. You will learn, how it is played on a drum practice pad and how it can be applied on a drum set.

Learn how to play a 5 stroke roll drum rudiment

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Good morning, and thanks a lot for joining me on Midnightdrummer.com today.

In this blog post, you will get to know and learn how to play one of the most interesting drum rudiments:

The 5 stroke roll!

In case, you haven't practiced this fascinating drum rudiment yet, great exercises are waiting for you!

Sounds interesting?

Let's go!

The 5 stroke roll notation

This is the notation of the 5 stroke roll rudiment:

This is the 5 stroke roll drum rudiment sheet music

5 Stroke Roll Notation

As you can see, the 5 stroke roll drum rudiment consists of 2 doubles (rr ll / ll rr) followed by an accented note (>):

  • rr ll R
  • ll rr L

Here's another way to practice the five stroke roll:

Another five stroke roll exercise played as 16th notes triplets.

Five Stroke Roll played as triplets

How to play a five stroke roll in drum grooves

The basics of the five stroke roll are quite easy!

If you notice difficulties while practicing this drum rudiment, you should practice your double stroke roll until you can play an even and smooth roll.

This will help you master the 5 stroke roll too!

Here are a few ideas on how to play the five stroke roll in drum grooves:

The first one is pretty simple and this 5 stroke roll is based on 16th notes on the hi-hat. Start with RR on beat 1 followed by LL. 

This is a five stroke roll drum groove exercise

Five Stroke Roll drum groove

As a left-handed drummer, you only have to switch to LLRR L.

Here's another one starting on the 2 “+” of the groove:

Another five stroke roll used in a drum groove

Five Stroke Roll in the middle of a drum groove

Here'a another drum groove using a 5 stroke roll rudiment – this time notated as 32nd notes:

Five Stroke Roll with 32nd notes in a drum groove

5 Stroke Roll using 32nd notes

How to play a 5 stroke roll in drum fills

Here are a few examples of how to play a 5 stroke roll in drum fills.

In the 1st exercise, we will apply the 5 stroke roll as 16th notes on the snare drum, starting on count 4. It ends on count 1 with a crash or hi-hat:

This is how to use a 5 stroke roll in a drum fill

5 Stroke Roll drum fill

In the second exercise, I added the bass drum to the 5 stroke roll, and it looks like this:

5 Stroke Roll Drum Fill using the bass drum

5 Stroke Roll including the bass drum

Conclusions

All 5 stroke roll exercises on this page are meant for beginners and as an intro on how to use the five stroke roll on a drum set.

Please try to develop more and your own unique versions of this cool drum rudiment. There are thousands of possibilities, and I am sure you will find a few.

Enjoy playing drums and talk soon!

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