Double Drag Practice Guide

Do you want to seriously impress people with your drumming skills and authenticity? Then you absolutely need to master your Double Drag performance.

Why?

Double Drags appear throughout every major national style of drumming – Swiss, Dutch, French, British, American, Spanish, etc.

For most of these styles, Double Drags are used for Reveilles.

For the English and American styles, they were used as 6/8 marches. In fact, their usage throughout 18th century Drum MS, 19th century published Drum Manuals, and other resources tell us that they were performed with great frequency.

Want to learn more about Double Drags? Check out my discussion of the History of the Double and Single Drags.

I would argue that modern 18th and 19th century re-enactors don’t play Double Drags nearly enough to properly recreate a typical drummer’s reportoire.

Also, if you want to learn to play one of the most important English / American Duty Calls – The Roast Beef, or Dinner Call – you will need to have command of the Double Drag.

Basic Performance of a Double Drag

So what is a Double Drag?

Very simply, a Double Drag is two drags on the same hand, followed by a stroke on the opposite hand.

To get started, try just mastering the sticking of a Double Drag with the exercise below:

For this exercise, do your best to just play the notes as clean, straight triplets.

If it helps, use a metronome:

Start slow at 60 beats per minute. Set your metronome to 180bpm – the clicks will now imitate the clean triplet rhythm you want.

Gradually increase. With every increase, move your metronome up by 15bpm or 30bpm.

There’s no real reason to go above 100bpm (300bpm on the triplets) for this exercise.

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Once you feel confidence with the exercise above, move onto the advance exercises.

Advanced Performance Of A Double Drag

The most difficult part of Double Drags are their dotted 6/8 rhythm.

At slower tempos, many drummers rush into the next Double Drag and push the tempo faster.

At faster tempos, many drummers lose the distinction of the Double Drag’s rhythm.

To prevent both of these problems – and master the rhythm – you want to develop a “muscle memory map“.

Building a Muscle Memory Map for Double Drags

In this exercise, we’re going to open up the rhythm of the Double Drag (like when you play a roll as 16th notes to master the double strokes).

Take a look at the exercise below:

How to Perform This Exercise:

• Right-hand Drag on Beat 1
• Reset for a Right-Hand Drag. Use Beats 2 & 3 to time the movement of the right hand back into position.
• Right-hand Drag on Beat 4.
• Left-hand Accent (hard stroke) on Beat 5.
• Set-up for a Left-Hand Drag. Use Beat 6 to time the movement of the left hand into position.

What Does This Exercise Help With?

Did you notice that there is a different amount of space (rest) between each stroke in the Double Drag?

You have two beats between the drags, but no rest between the 2nd drag and accent. Then, you have one beat of rest before beginning the next Double Drag.

If you work on this exercise properly, it will teach your muscle memory how much space or movement it needs to create between each stroke.

Then, when you slow the rhythm down or speed it up, your muscles will remember how to adjust naturally.

How to practice This “Muscle Memory Map”

Start with a metronome at a very low tempo until you figure out the exercise.

Begin at 80bpm with the metronome subdivided to triplets.

Most metronome apps have this ability now:

You can either set the rhythm in a drop-down menu. Or, it might ask “clicks per beat”. Set that to 3.

If your metronome doesn’t do this, this exercise will be impossible to perform. Consider downloading a free app with the capacity.

Once you can play the line through 2-3x in a row correctly, increase by 10bpm.

Continue until you reach 160bpm. At this point, you are playing Double Drags at 80bpm.

Download a pdf of these Double Drag exercises for practice use.

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Want to know more about why “muscle memory maps” or “tempo as movement” works so well? Check out my discussion of how to perform a Double Stroke roll in a period correct way.

Interested in learning more about Double Drags? Check out:

• History of the Single Drag & Double Drag
• Double Drags in the American Reveille Sequence
• Double Drags’ Relationship to The Dutch Reveille
• What is a Compound Drag?

Want more practice guides?

• Authentic Right-Hand Grip Practice Guide
• The Flam: Sticking Control Practice Guide
• Double Stroke Roll – Beginner Practice Guide
• The Ra Simple / 4-Stroke Roll / Swiss Ruff Practice Guide
• The 5-Stroke Roll Practice Guide
• The 7-Stroke Roll Practice Guide
• The 9-Stroke Roll Practice Guide
• The Double Stroke Roll – Advanced Practice Guide
• The Three Camps Practice Guide