I Wanna Play REALLY Fast

[thebanshee]

My ultimate goal is to play single stroke rolls really fast and well. Any tips? Any exercises?

[8Keep]

Practice it a lot lol. Be able to do 8's really really fast and evenly on each hand. Thats really all there is to it.

[LordHighEmu]

The first step is to get your weak hand to the same 8's speed as your strong hand - ex. my left hand isn't as good at playing fast as my right. Isolate your weak hand, and from there practice really fast legato 8's and singles. Just keep in mind that each hand is moving the same speed (it sounds obvious and stupid, but it's good to understand what your hands are doing in anything you play), and then just use a met. There's no trick here.

[FatMatt]

Don't just play 8s... play a lot more than 8 notes on a hand. I would say work on playing doublestops for a "long time" and get the tempo up on that. Then work on relating the doublestops (physical strength) to a consistent single-stroke roll (coordination).

Here is an exercise that might help. You might even try adding an extra bar of doublestops between each measure to really make sure you can maintain the motion with your hands and build some endurance. *.pdf: http://fatmattdrums.com/pdf/e_clone_pyramid.pdf