I’ve been away for a bit. I’m sorry. I hope that doesn’t mean you won’t do me a favor. Not a huge favor, just a small one, okay?

Play four counts of 16th notes with an accent on each downbeat, starting on the right hand.

Done? Cool. Now, play the exact same thing but use a paradiddle sticking. Start on the same hand.

Finished? Thanks. I owe ya. Now answer this: did the two patterns feel different? I bet they did. And that’s important, because the way you feel while you’re playing a pattern affects the way you keep time. I call this the “handfeel”.

One of my drumlines is currently having difficulty playing paradiddle, tap-diddle, and diddle-tap exercises at a steady tempo. The thing about those diddle-based rudiments is, unlike rolls, they’re used to play a linear succession of beats in a non-linear, sometimes asymmetrical manner, as opposed to the constant symmetrical and linear alternation of hands.

I know, I know… what on earth does that mean? It means space. The alternative sticking of diddle-based patterns provides each hand space between notes. This space gives us the opportunity to keep time by playing a basic rhythm using different stickings other than your typical hand-to-hand strokes.

Take, for instance, the four counts of 16ths played in a single-stroke manner:

Playing that hand-to-hand is very direct, very driving. In contrast…

Paradiddles – for example – offer each hand some space, which means that although the pattern itself is driving, the handfeel is more laid back After all, the right hand is playing:

Notice that I left all the rests in 16th value so you could see all the space your right hand has while playing paradiddles… and, oh, how much space there is! The left hand plays the same pattern during those spaces, but of course its cycle begins at a different point.

Tap-diddles and diddle-taps contribute to this spacious handfeel with their asymmetrical patterns on each hand. The notes are delivered in a linear succession without breaks, but one hand plays the tap, the other plays the diddle, and each hand gets its own unique set of space. Neither hand is playing the same thing, so you have to figure out how that asymmetrical, spacious handfeel feels inside the tempo.

In the case of diddle-based patterns, it’s this space that can help you figure out how to approach the pattern so that you can play it at a steady tempo. Take advantage of the resulting handfeel and “lay back” by not approaching the passage with a sense of driving through the passage really hard, but instead with a sense of open space as opposed to closed space. This doesn’t mean you should play lazily and drag, of course, nor should the rhythmic interpretation alter.

The concept of handfeel offers a way to help you be aware of how these patterns feel physically within a selected tempo. This is used in conjunction with understanding how the denomination of notes fit within a time signature and tempo; understanding how all the beats are placed in time. It’s a burden to mentally keep track of all the beats you’re playing, making sure that you’re placing each and every beat in perfect metronomic fashion, or counting along in your head (as many younger players are prone to do). At some point, feel is going to have to take over; you’re going to have to know what fundamental rhythms and sticking patterns feel like.

Not to mention that these stickings offer us a choice. Since different stickings have different handfeels, we can choose how we want to keep time during certain passages, and that lends itself to musical interpretation.

And it gets more complex when you combine different patterns, say, a paradiddle into two tap-diddles into a paradiddle-diddle into an inverted paradiddle. At some point, you have to have enough diddle control to keep them evenly spaced so that no matter what kind of space surrounds them you don’t end up closing the space of the diddles themselves. Through the entire passage, however, you’ll need to remember that all of that space requires you to lay back and keep everything open, rather than drive right through and close everything up.
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Oh… what about double-stroke rolls, you say? Rolls fall into the hand-to-hand category because, although you’re playing doubles on each hand, each hand does move up and down to a specific fundamental base rhythm, whether it’s 16ths, 8ths, triplets (12ths), etc., which means that the hand alternation is constantly symmetrical and linear.

Rolls are really another story… and another post.