I’ve been fooling around with applying some rudiments to the long exercises in Syncopation, by Ted Reed. We’ll start humbly with it, converting the written quarter notes (and tied 8ths) to untied rolls– an 8th note roll with an 8th note release. There are a few dotted quarter notes, which become a quarter note roll with an 8th note release:
This should be played at a medium to bright tempo. The release notes are not part of the written melody, obviously, and we’re trying to give the impression of untied quarter note-length rolls, so don’t play the releases too strongly. This method is easy enough that you should have little problem using it on the fly to the other long exercises in Reed. You can do the rolls open or closed, as either 5-strokes or 7-strokes– or 9s or 13s on the quarter note-value rolls:
