Single Paradiddle
Learn How To Play The Single Paradiddle Drum Rudiment!
The single paradiddle is one of the most popular drum rudiments. It combines singles strokes with double strokes. So, if you haven’t worked on the single stroke roll and double stroke roll drum rudiments, check those free drum lessons first before going any further with this one.
The word “paradiddle” in the name of a rudiment, means that particular pattern has two single strokes (para) followed by one set of doubles (diddle). The word “single” in this particular case means you have one set of singles for each set of doubles. Thus, you can count the single paradiddle as such: R (par) L (a) R (did) R (dle) L (par) R (r) L (did) L (dle).
The single paradiddle is one of the finest drum rudiments for coming up with cool sounding drum beats and drum fills. This rudiment opens a lot of possibilities when applied to the drum set, since it enables you to alternate easily between hands. The single paradiddle is mostly played as 16th notes. You can however play this drum rudiment in whatever note value you feel like using. Once you feel competent playing the single paradiddle on a practice pad or a snare drum, you can put it to great use by learning how to apply it drum beats and drum fills.
For exercise #1, Lionel Duperron decided to start thing off simple. With the bass drum playing on counts 1 and 3, he played the single paradiddle between the snare drum and hi-hat. The left hand is left on the snare drum playing ghosted notes. The right hand plays snare shots on counts 2 and 4, playing normal volume strokes on the hi-hat for most of the time.
The next drum beat incorporating a single paradiddle has the bass drum played on all quarter notes. The single paradiddle is spread between the right hand, which plays the bow of the ride cymbal, and the left hand, which plays the hi-hat and snare shots on counts 2 and 4.
After mastering these drum beats, take some of your favorite bass drum patterns and add them to the mix, while keeping the same hand pattern going. This will give you an added challenge to work on. As you can see, due to its sticking, the single paradiddle is actually a very cool drum beat for coming up with very funky drum beats.
In the next section, Lionel came up with two very cool sounding drum fills incorporating the single paradiddle. The pattern on exercise #3 is pretty straight forward. On counts 1 and 3 Lionel plays the floor tom, while on counts 2 and 4 the hi-tom. All the remaining notes are left on the snare drum. This is a very typical single paradiddle type of pattern. When using a single paradiddle as a drum fill, drummers tend to play the first note around the toms or cymbals, while leaving the remaining ones on the snare drum.
The last exercise in this 40 drum rudiments video lesson displays a different way of applying the single paradiddle to a drum fill. Lionel decided to spread each single stroke around the drums – snare and hi-tom on counts 1 and 3, snare and floor tom on counts 2 and 4 - while always playing the diddle on the same surface for each count – floor tom on counts 1 and 3, hi-tom on counts 2 and 4.
After you’re done practicing these exercises, you can move on to learn how to play the next pattern from the paradiddle family of drum rudiments - the double paradiddle.
Paradiddle Rudiments |
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| Single Paradiddle | Triple Paradiddle | Single Paradiddle-diddle |
| Double Paradiddle | ||