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That's strange I would never have considered including the ruff in the actual specified roll...

I know. This confusion is part of why I left this book alone for a while when I first started out.

I really only came to this conclusion myself, so I'd be open to other ideas, but it's the only way things make sense to me. The studies are progressive, so it would be quite a jump to expect anyone to roll in more complex subdivisions.

There's really nothing rhythmically adventurous in that regard in the whole book. It really is just rudiments strung together in basic form, but the accents, or sometimes lack thereoff complicate things, at least for me.

Great book.

I was enjoying the challenge of playing 14 in the time of 3, but seemed overly complex for a book like this. I've never seen a 15 stroke roll notated before as anything other than 14 even notes resolving on a 15th usually longer accented note...
Strange

Odd-Arne Oseberg wrote:To me the 15 stroke roll text includes the drag.

So, really it's a 13-stroke roll with regular 32nd note doubles starting on the & of 1 with a drag in front of it.

This is how the stickings make sense.

When there's no drag and alternate stickings, like the last bar on No. 4 however, then you'll fit a 32nd note sixtuplet in that one 8th note beat.

This is correct. If you look at the way 7 stroke rolls are noted, you see it either with a drag or without it. Sometimes both ways within the same solo. Without the drag it's played as a sextuplet, but with the drag it becomes a 5 stroke roll with two 32nd notes added before it starts. The same concept occurs with any given number, like the 15 stroke rolls (13 plus the preceding two, in this case).

Wilcoxon sometimes uses the solo to illustrate roll notations, like in study #17 (coming up this afternoon).

Matus - Great book & great playing. This may help clear up some of the confusion ....

That's a great clarification, Timbata! The only thing I don't really share, and is just a matter of which "school" you come from, is the interpretation of drags. Traditionally, a drag, just like a flam, has no actual rythmic value. They're all grace notes. It kinda loses power as opposed to practicing them very separated from the actual note group and makes it a whole different thing.
In fact, in classical music there are two kinds of grace note: mordente and appoggiatura. The first includes flams and drags and have no rythmic value so they're always played the same, no matter the tempo. The second does have a value and is usually 1/2 the value of the "real" note.
It just makes more sense to me this way.

Closing the drags definetly makes it more of a challenge for me, so I just figure that's good practice.

Never met a conductor who would care, but what do they know, damn posers.

Here's a few more.

Matus wrote:That's a great clarification, Timbata! The only thing I don't really share, and is just a matter of which "school" you come from, is the interpretation of drags. Traditionally, a drag, just like a flam, has no actual rythmic value. They're all grace notes. It kinda loses power as opposed to practicing them very separated from the actual note group and makes it a whole different thing.
In fact, in classical music there are two kinds of grace note: mordente and appoggiatura. The first includes flams and drags and have no rythmic value so they're always played the same, no matter the tempo. The second does have a value and is usually 1/2 the value of the "real" note.
It just makes more sense to me this way.

I think that strictly metering the grace notes works best if you are playing with more than one snare drummer and you want it to sound super clean. If you are playing by yourself you have a lot more freedom in how you interpret the grace notes. You sound great. Keep up the good work!