Drag Roll

[Tomm]

I'm going to bring this up to spark a debate on the issue...if nothing else.  I know that in no drum lesson of any style is the drag roll taught.  Even so, I have used it with much success and satisfaction to what I have always tried to produce.  I do mostly use the taught rudimentary procedures on short and long rolls, but just the same, when I'm improvising with a group I haven't worked with a lot, or working out new tunes, as it were, I rely on a quick drag roll to move on without jamming up my brain with alternating doubles and the sort.

Comments?  Questions?

[KenSanders]

When I read your post, I understood the drag roll to be a double ghost stroke (a rudimental drag) as a lead in to a double stroke roll.  Then when I read "without jamming my brain with alternating doubles and the sort".....well I just wasn't sure.

I use the pattern described above a lot, but it may or may not be the pattern you are asking about.  So give us a definition of the drag roll so the dialog is focused on the correct topic.
 

[Tomm]

Okay...sorry about the confusion.  It's a  one half beat 16th note roll done with the ride hand, usually...in my case the right hand (the one I play my ride cymbal with.  The drag is followed up by an accent hit on the component of your choice.  As I said before, it's something I use that works for quick fill, and intro into some quick lick solo jazz and/or rock.

So Ken, are you a member of this renegade brigade? 

[KenSanders]

That helps clarify the pattern, now we'll see if we have some comments from the readers.  I know that I use the kind of pattern you're talking about quite often, so I quess that does make me a member of the brigade.   

[Beatpsychic]

I think Tomm is using a  R R L R sticking in a 16th note triplet context. Think of  the second part of a sextuplet and the forth stroke hits on the downbeat. So if you were using it at the end of a 4/4 bar... it would start on the & of 4 on the ride with two strokes R R... left hand(snare) on the 3 of the sextuplet, and the last R would be on a crash, or other piece... I think this is what he is describing(I have seen him do it a few times...and it's a cool lick)... 

[Tomm]

Yeah, that's it.  I remember the first time I did that in your presence, it was the first thing you commented on afterward.  The RR was on the #2 ride tom, L on the snare, and the R was a crash cymbal.  Of course I use it in other licks, and a couple of variations like improving another beat divided by eighths or sixteenths.  It gets me through some tough spots when these 57 year old reflexes just don't make the cut.

[KenSanders]

I agree with you both......it's a cool lick, when used in the right context.