Thirteen Stroke Roll

Grip & Sticking

Also called the mother, thirteen strokes.

Six sets of double strokes plus a final single: R R L L R R L L R R L L R, mirrored with the left leading. Thirteen strokes, six diddles and a landing. Old fife-and-drummers called it the mother, and it is still the badge of the roll family — clean, even thirteens at speed separate students from players.

This is the big orchestral and drumline roll, and on a kit it is the one-bar tom crescendo that opens a chorus or rolls into a crash under a ballad ending. Broken between snare and hi-hat as sixteenth notes it doubles as a driving groove ornament. In rudimental solos it usually shows up exactly where the audience is meant to gasp.

Chunk it: practise the first three diddles, then the last three plus the final single, then stitch the halves together. Metronome at 60 bpm, one roll per click as a crescendo, last stroke landing on the click. The middle diddles always run fastest — loop the middle four strokes alone until they stay honest at tempo.