What Is Buzz Roll Drumming?

Series Summary

Drums make up the backbone of most rock and jazz bands. These percussion instruments are used to keep the beat for the song and the other musicians. Drums are the world's oldest and most essential of musical instruments, and have remained basically unchanged for thousands of years. Drums are not tuned instruments but they do create the bones of a song and are especially important in rock music and jazz.

In this free video series, our expert will demonstrate buzz roll techniques in drumming. Expert Kevin Grossman demonstrates how to do the exercises that will help you learn to play buzz rolls on the drums, including quarter note, 8th note and 16th note exercises, as well as building dynamics and changing the sounds of your drumming. Watch these videos and take your drumming to the next level.

Video Transcript

"Alright, so in this series I'm going to show you how to play a drum roll so that when someone says "Drum roll please", you can be right on it with a. Now there's a few things you need to know about how to get the buzz sound out of the sticks. So I'm going to show you how to do that. I'm going to give you some things to work on to really build up to speed. And we're going to compare the open roll which is what those five stroke rolls and seven stroke rolls are. Comparing it to the buzz, how to get the different sounds and how to work it out together. And I'm going to show you, you know, how you can move it around the snare drum to get different sounds out of it. And then I'll just let you know what to do so you can really endure it. You know you want to be able to do like a five minute drum roll if you have to. I think there's a world record for the longest drum roll. It goes on for a few days or something like that, I don't know. It's out of control. But by the end of this lesson, maybe you'll be able to do that. So check it out. "