Part 4: Alley-Oop The alley-oop technique is what I call a wrist/finger combination used for playing double strokes (diddles) and triple strokes. While it can be likened to the push/pull technique, which is a wrist stroke followed by a finger stroke, the alley-oop isn’t purely one motion followed by the other, and it’s not intended for playing ongoing, evenly metered strokes. It’s a technique for playing short bursts of two or three notes. Many drummers struggle with double and triple strokes. The problems often fall into one of two categories: relying too heavily on bounce or stroking each beat entirely from the wrist. If you simply bounce the second and/or third strokes, they will sound weaker than the first stroke because they have less velocity going into the drum. If you stroke everything from the wrist, your speed will be limited. Plus you’ll lose sound quality, your hands will get […]