The paradiddle is one of the most well-known rudiments that you can play. Rudiments are the name for the different stick patterns that drummers and percussionists play, and there are officially 40 recognized ones that all drummers should learn.
If you’re a new drummer, the paradiddle will be one of the first rudiments to start working on. In this guide, we’ll show you what a paradiddle is, and we’ll explain a few ways of learning to play it. We’ll also break down a few different versions of the paradiddle.
A paradiddle is a basic rudiment that goes right, left, right, right. If you start it with your left hand, you’ll play left, right, left, left. People commonly group those two together, giving you a repeating paradiddle pattern that goes right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left.
All those strokes are played with the same timing, keeping the same space between each one. A paradiddle is a rudiment that you can play continuously, and it’s a great one to work on your hand technique.
For the sake of this guide, we’re going to refer to right-hand strokes as “R” and left-hand strokes as “L”. This will make reading these patterns a lot easier.
The easiest way to master a paradiddle is to have a good grasp on single strokes and double strokes first. A paradiddle is simply a combination of those, so being able to play them well will help you with your paradiddles.
A single stroke looks like this: R L R L.
A double stroke looks like this: R R L L.
Work on playing those two rudiments interchangeably, and you’ll get the basic idea of what a paradiddle is.
The easiest way to play a paradiddle is to visualize that as you’re playing this: R L R R L R L L.
A single paradiddle is the one that we’ve been speaking about until now. As we said earlier, one paradiddle would be R L R R or L R L L. When you mix those two stickings together, you’ll get a continuous single paradiddle.
That pattern will look like this:
R L R R L R L L
A double paradiddle is when you play more single strokes than double strokes in the pattern. You’ll first play two single strokes, and then you’ll play a double stroke with one hand. You’ll then flip it around to lead with your other hand for the next section, creating a continuous pattern.
That will look like this:
R L R L R R L R L R L L
A triple paradiddle is very similar to a double paradiddle, but now you’ll have three sets of single strokes before the double stroke comes.
That will look like this:
R L R L R L R R L R L R L R L L
A paradiddlediddle is when you switch those stickings around. This time, you’ll have more double strokes than single strokes, giving you a unique version of the rudiment.
Drummers often love playing paradiddlediddles in triplets, but you can play them as straight notes as well.
A paradiddlediddle looks like this:
R L R R L L
An inverted paradiddle is when you start a single paradiddle in the middle of the pattern. This one isn’t as commonly played as the others, but it sounds very interesting. You can use it to play some dynamic ideas on the drum kit.
It looks like this:
R L L R L L R L
A flam paradiddle is when you play a single paradiddle and add a flam on the first note. A flam is when you lightly play one stroke just before your second one lands. Both those strokes count as the same stroke, though.
The flam paradiddle will be written out the same as a single paradiddle, but you’ll get a flam stroke on the first of every four notes.
That will look like this:
lR L R R rL R L L
The best way to practice paradiddles is by playing them repeatedly while using a metronome. A metronome will keep the beat, and then you need to match those beats with your strokes.
It’s good to start very slowly so that you can allow your muscle memory to develop. After that, you can slowly increase the speed as you get better at playing the rudiment.
It works very well when you play at a certain speed for three to five minutes and then boost tempo by five or ten BPM. If you raise the speed too high, you’ll find it difficult to adjust. So, always do micro-adjustments when practicing.
Playing paradiddles on the drum set is referred to as orchestrating them. You just need to play the same sticking pattern and then choose which drums to hit.
One of the most common ways of playing paradiddles on the drum set is to play the first note of every four strokes on a tom and then play the remaining three notes as ghost notes on the snare drum. This creates an interesting drum fill sound.
You should also try to play paradiddle between your cymbals and your snare drum. That also sounds excellent.
Paradiddles are incredibly important. Every drummer needs to have mastery over them, so it’s good to start working on them as early as possible. That’s why they’re one of the best rudiments for beginners to learn.
Start by learning to play them on a practice pad. Make sure that you can play them at a reasonable speed. Once you can do that, move over to your drum set and see what you can come up with. There are so many playing possibilities with this single rudiment that you’ll never run out of ideas.
Drum Teacher
Brett Clur has a Drum Performance Diploma from Trinity College London has been playing drums for over 20 years. He is passionate about advanced concepts and uses his years of experience to teach his students about them. While he is a full-time drum teacher, he is also working on growing a YouTube channel where shares his insights. You can see him playing there, or on Instagram where he posts daily videos.
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