Reading George Lawrence Stone’s Technique of Percussion, in a 1953 International Musician column he discusses “compound” rolls— rolls including two accented singles. The six stroke roll is most familiar of that type, the 10 stroke slightly less often referenced. And mentions the 8 stroke, which I’ve never seen mentioned at all.
In talking about them Stone references some very old books:
The eight-stroke was presented in the method of Levi Lovering, published in 1818, and later, in that of Bruce and Emmett (1862). But the Lovering method is practically unknown today and, since B. and E. were unclear on where the eight- might be used, it apparently fell by the the wayside.
About the 6 stroke he notes:
There was no six-stroke compound mentioned in the early writings,: the six- is a recent development.
To get acquainted with the concept, I’ve written it in a few different forms here. In some forms it’s very normal (see #5., “paradiddle-diddle, diddle”) in others… you can see why it never survived the 19th century.
I guess one could call item 5 a paratriplediddle, instead. Paradiddle-diddle… diddle. Really string it out.
Number 15 is going to be weird, but it seems likely that’s close to the original form of it. It seems there was a lot of organically squashing things in happening in “ancient” drumming.
I’ve been doing some Twitch streams this week— I’m figuring it out, I feel like mostly I’m complaining about the music or about my hands, is that good content?— but I’ll do one today, and play this— early afternoon.
UPDATE: Here’s the video edit from a recent Twitch stream:
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