The drag ruff is one of the 40 international drum rudiments. It’s also one of the seven essential drum rudiments, alongside the single stroke roll, the double stroke roll, the multiple bounce roll, the five stroke roll, the single paradiddle and the flam. It’s very important you become competent with at least these seven drum rudiments, since they’re heavily used in music and any other rudiment is based on them. In this lesson we’ll focus our attention on the drag ruff and how you can use it to spice up your drum fills.
Before you start working on this free drum lesson we encourage you to check Lionel Duperron’s free drum lesson on the drag ruff. There, you’ll learn how to play and practice the drag ruff on a single surface and how to apply it to drum fills and drum beats. The drum fills on that lesson are a bit easier to play than these ones. Working through that lesson before doing so with this one will make it easier to master these exercises.
You’ll have to play fast double strokes with one foot on one of the drum fills. You can use whatever technique you see fit, but if you’d like to use the same one as Jared does in the video, check his free drum lesson on the heel-toe technique.
Once you start getting comfortable with the drum fills taught in this free drum lesson, we encourage you to use them in a musical setting. You can do so with the play-along we created specifically for mastering drum fills.