By Magnus Brandell
To understand the theory about FIVES and how you can learn to play them and hear what they sound like I will explain how I teach them to my students. This is from a drummers point of view but guitarists just use up and down stroke instead of my stickings and bassplayers index finger and middle finger etc… You get the general picture. 
It’s a good thing to start with quintuplets, which is 5 hits per beat. We drummers have many different ways of using stickings for these, but let’s go with the alternate one rlrlr lrlrl rlrlr lrlrl (right-left-right etc). Use a metronome when you’re practicing this and it’s also a good thing to use your voice to get it into your system. In Sweden we often say da la pi ko la to learn it.
When you are comfortable with this we move on to the 5 against 2. Use the same rlrlr lrlrl etc. and start to accent every other hit: RlRlR lRlRl So, all the hits with the right hand are accented! There you have the rhythm-sound of 5 against 2! And as soon as you are comfortable doing this, just play the accents and, there you have it!
5 against 4 is a bit more tricky and takes a bit longer to learn. Let’s go back to the quintuplets again and use the same rlrlr lrlrl rlrlr lrlrl. But this time we’re accenting every other hit the right hand is doing, something like this: RlrlR lrlRl rlRlr lRlrl and there you have the rhythm-sound of 5 against 4! (In slow tempos this is really hard to hear) And, when comfortable doing this, try only the accents.
You can also see the notes how they relate to each other.
Or, don’t bother this theory and let our drum loops do the work for you 🙂
Anyway, have fun!!
Magnus
