If there’s one drum rudiment that seems to have escaped the practice room and made its way into popular culture, it’s the paradiddle.
Tell someone you’re a drummer and there’s a decent chance they’ll eventually make some joke about paradiddles.
“Working on your paradiddles?”
Why this particular rudiment became the one that non-drummers have heard of, I honestly don’t know. But somehow, the word paradiddle has become permanently associated with drumming.
So what exactly is a paradiddle? Why do drummers spend so much time practicing them? And—perhaps most importantly—can you actually use them to make music?
The answer to that last question is definitely yes.
So, welcome to this introduction to all things paradiddle.
Paradiddles are a subset of the Rudiments.
But strictly speaking, a paradiddle is simply a sticking pattern:
R L R R L R L L
That’s the single paradiddle.
But there’s an entire family of related paradiddle patterns, including:
The single paradiddle itself can also be inverted, giving us four different versions of the pattern.
I’ve put all of these together in a PDF called The Paradiddle Worksheet, which you can download here:
The worksheet is intended as a reference. It gives you the basic patterns so you can see how the paradiddle family fits together.
But simply memorizing the patterns isn’t really the point.
The interesting stuff begins when you start manipulating them.
First, let me put paradiddles in perspective.
I don’t think they’re the most important sticking patterns in drumming. Don’t get me wrong. Yes, they’re important. But if you put a gun to my head and said: “Name the two most important drum rudiments or you’re dead,” paradiddles would not be number one. Nor would they be number two.
If I had to choose, I’d put basic single strokes and double strokes ahead of them. Becoming really good at manipulating singles and doubles is fundamental to developing your hands.
But after singles and doubles?
Paradiddles are pretty high on my list.
And guess what? Paradiddles are simply combinations of single and doubles anyway.
But back to question: why are they important?
There are really two reasons: technical development and a massive depth of musical vocabulary.
Learning to play paradiddles cleanly at different tempos is good for your hands. But you can go much further than simply playing:
R L R R L R L L
over and over again.
You can move accents around. You can switch between different paradiddle patterns. You can play them at different rhythmic rates. And as your technique develops, you can integrate techniques such as the Moeller stroke to help you play the accented notes with more speed, power and finesse.
Moeller technique is a subject for another article, but the larger point is this:
Paradiddles can become part of your overall technical development rather than just another rudiment you’re supposed to memorize.
One of the most useful characteristics of paradiddles is that double strokes are embedded within the patterns.
That leaves certain single strokes particularly well positioned for accents.
Take the basic single paradiddle:
R L R R L R L L
The first and second notes of each four-note grouping are the easiest places to put accents.
So start experimenting.
Play an accent only on the first note.
Then only on the second.
Then accent both the first and second notes.
Next, start leaving spaces between accents and combining those three possibilities in different ways.
Even though you’re playing the exact same sticking underneath, the musical result can sound very different depending on where you place the accents.
Now apply the same thinking to the other paradiddles on the worksheet.
Suddenly, a relatively small collection of sticking patterns generates a huge amount of material.
Here’s another way to multiply the possibilities: don’t assume that a paradiddle has to be played as 16th notes.
Take the exact same sticking and play it as eighth-note triplets.
Or 16th-note triplets.
Or 32nd notes.
The double paradiddle, triple paradiddle and paradiddle-diddle are often written using particular subdivisions because they fit neatly on the page that way. But that doesn’t mean you have to play them that way.
Changing the rhythmic framework underneath a sticking can completely change how that sticking sounds and feels.
And once you start combining different paradiddle patterns + different accents + different subdivisions, you begin to see why these things can generate so much vocabulary.
This is subjective, but I definitely have favorites.
If I ranked the paradiddles according to how useful they’ve been in my own playing, my list would probably look something like this:
For me, the inverted paradiddle has been particularly useful.
In the video on this page (called “Inverted Paradiddles: Developing Facility”), I go into much more detail about ways you can take the inverted paradiddle off the practice pad and use it around the drum set.
Now, back to my ranking of paradiddle patterns. I haven’t personally found nearly as much use for the triple paradiddle as I have for the others. Another drummer might completely disagree with me.
But that’s part of the point.
You don’t have to treat every rudiment as equally important simply because somebody put it on a list. Learn the patterns, experiment with them, and figure out which ones produce things that you actually want to play.
There are multiple inverted paradiddle PDFs available here at BANG! The Drum School. Let me give you two options to get you started:
Absolutely.
This is where I think rudiments become much more interesting.
If you’re going to spend hours developing a sticking, I want you to eventually ask:
What can I do with this on the drums?
One of the simplest approaches is to keep most of the unaccented notes on the snare drum and move the accents around the drum set.
The accents might move to your toms. They might become cymbal hits. You might play a bass drum simultaneously with a cymbal accent.
For example, take a right-hand-lead paradiddle-diddle and accent the first right hand.
Keep the other notes relatively quiet on the snare drum, but move that accented right hand around the kit.
Once you can play that cleanly at speed—as 16th-note triplets or even 32nd notes—you have the beginnings of some very effective soloing and fill vocabulary.
And that’s just one pattern.
Start mixing different paradiddles together and moving their accents around the drums, and the possibilities multiply very quickly.
To get you started, here is a pretty interesting PDF called “Paradiddle Triplet Combinations, Part 1.”
You can also replace hand strokes with bass drum notes or insert the bass drum into the patterns.
Here’s one idea I’ve used in my own playing.
Take the first half of a single paradiddle:
R L R R
Then add a bass drum:
R L R R F
Reverse the sticking:
L R L L F
And continue:
R L R R F L R L L F
Now you’ve created a five-note phrase.
You can play it as 16th notes and let the five-note pattern move across the beat, or play it as quintuplets.
It creates an unusual sound that I really like. It’s one of those little pieces of vocabulary that I’ve kept in my pocket and occasionally use when the musical situation calls for something a little strange.
And I honestly don’t remember hearing anyone else play that exact idea.
That’s the kind of experimentation I’d encourage you to do.
Don’t think of the paradiddle as a sacred pattern that you’re not allowed to alter.
Use it as raw material.
Paradiddles aren’t just for fills and solos, either. They can be used to create grooves.
One simple approach–which I demonstrate in the second video on this page (“From Beginner Drum Rudiment to Advanced Latin Fusion Groove”) is to take the backwards paradiddle pattern which is RRLR LLRL (#3 on The Paradiddle Worksheet PDF) and split your hands between the cymbal and snare drum.
Then play a samba bass drum pattern underneath it.
Now start experimenting with accents on the single strokes.
The result is a modern-sounding samba that can sound really sophisticated once you get comfortable with it.
I believe I originally got the idea from hearing Steve Gadd play something along these lines on a Chick Corea recording.
The inverted paradiddle—number two on the worksheet—is another pattern that I’ve found particularly useful for creating grooves. With some independence work and the right bass drum patterns, it can generate some very cool funk and fusion-type ideas.
Again, the point isn’t necessarily to play a paradiddle and have somebody listening say:
“Hey! That was an inverted paradiddle!”
The paradiddle is simply the underlying sticking that helps you create the music.
If you’re interested in exploring using the backwards paradiddle and applying it to the samba groove, I’ve created a PDF that will help you called “10 Exercises to Develop The Reverse Paradiddle Samba” that you can download.
If you take nothing else from this article, I’d like it to be this:
A paradiddle is a pattern. It’s a tool.
It is a rich tool that can help you create some wonderfully musical ideas on the drums.
Practicing the pattern develops control. That’s valuable.
But its larger potential comes from what you do with it.
Take the paradiddles on the worksheet and:
You could probably spend years exploring all the possibilities.
And that’s why, despite the funny name—and despite the fact that paradiddles have somehow become the rudiment that non-drummers make jokes about—they’ve stuck around.
They’re useful.
Download The Paradiddle Worksheet here and learn the basic patterns, and then start messing around with them.
You may be surprised by how much music is hiding inside those few combinations of rights and lefts.
You Might Also Like:
How to Learn Drums (this is my overall concept on what you need to focus on in order to learn to play from the beginning).
Feel free to explore our online drum lessons for beginners.
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