How to Do a One Handed Cymbal Roll

Professional drummers have a lot of tricks up their sleeve: one of them is the one handed cymbal roll. It sounds difficult, but unlike traditional snare rolls, this cymbal roll uses drumming tools, namely brushes, to take a lot of the work out of the roll. Here's how to do the cymbal roll with one hand and a brush.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Take out your brushes. If you don't have these in your drum kit, get a pair. These wire brush sticks do a lot of things for drummers. Professionals use them to create rolling sounds and softer attacks on all kinds of drums and cymbals.
2. Extend your brushes so the various wire pieces are loose.
3. Put the brush toward the cymbal, making sure that some wires go below the cymbal edge and some go above. Your cymbal should be right in the middle, sandwiched in between the individual strands of the brush.
4. Make small motions with your hand up and down (you can use fingers or wrists) and you'll hear the "roll" sound of the wire pieces softly hitting the sides of the cymbal.
5. Keep up these small movements for the duration of the roll. You'll see that the cymbal roll takes less energy and concentration to do well with a brush, and if it's part of your repertoire, you'll probably end up using it a lot.