The drum rudiments
A guide to Drum Rudiments
Think of the drum rudiments as the "building blocks" of drumming. Their purpose is something roughly equivalent to a pianist or a guitarist learning and practicing their musical scales on their instrument. The rudiments are important to help a drummer develop technique, phrasing, control and coordination on the drums.
Ultimately, having a great grasp of all the rudiments will enable you to be more fluent and creative as well as technically competent.
Building Blocks
The rudiments are an example of being "greater than the sum of its parts". All of the rudiments can be combined, mutated, adapted, and evolved.
This means that there are hundreds of rudiment exercises out there. This might seem overwhelming or even off-putting at first. At the very least, it is commonly accepted that there are 40 important drum rudiments. If this seems like too much to get your head around, then read on... Help is at hand!
The 4 families
All of the rudiments can be traced back to one of 4 "families".
By keeping it simple and organised, we can start to evolve the rudiments through small variations and you can gradually build up your knowledge. Don't be overwhelmed by all 40 rudiments at once (or over 400 if you count all the hybrids!). Break it down to just these 4 starting points.
The 4 rudiment families are:
- Roll rudiments
- Diddle rudiments
- Flam rudiments
- Drag rudiments
Roll rudiments
In the context of the rudiments the terms "roll" means playing evenly-spaced notes. These notes may be single strokes (alternating from hand to hand) or double strokes (two strokes in each hand) or multiple strokes (three or more strokes in each hand).
Diddle rudiments
A diddle is drumming language for a double (two notes played by one hand). For example LL or RR. A paradiddle involves a combination of single and double strokes in a repeating sequence.
Flam rudiments
One grace note followed by a full volume stroke played very close together in order to sound like one slightly longer note.
Drag rudiments
Two grace notes followed by a full volume stroke. This gives the impression of a "dragged" sound, hence the name.
From these 4 main families of rudiments, we move on to learn the 40 standard rudiments that make up the Percussive Arts Society (PAS) International Drum Rudiments.
International Drum Rudiments
Here are all 40 of the International Drum Rudiments, under the 4 main family headings. You can view notation and examples of each rudiment on the Percussive Arts Society website
Roll Rudiments
Single Stroke Rudiments
1. Single Stroke Roll
2. Single Stroke Four
3. Single Stroke Seven
Multiple Bounce Rudiments
4. Multiple Bounce Roll
5. Triple Stroke Roll
Double Stroke Rudiments
6. Double Stroke Open Roll
7. Five Stroke Roll
8. Six Stroke Roll
9. Seven Stroke Roll
10. Nine Stroke Roll
11. Ten Stroke Roll
12. Eleven Stroke Roll
13. Thirteen Stroke Roll
14. Fifteen Stroke Roll
15. Seventeen Stroke Roll
Diddle Rudiments
16. Single Paradiddle
17. Double Paradiddle
18. Triple Paradiddle
19. Paradiddle-Diddle
Flam Rudiments
20. Flam
21. Flam Accent
22. Flam Tap
23. Flamacue
24. Flam Paradiddle
25. Flammed Mill
26. Flam Paradiddle-Diddle
27. Pataflafla
28. Swiss Army Triplet
29. Inverted Flam Tap
30. Flam Drag
Drag Rudiments
31. Drag
32. Single Drag Tap
33. Double Drag Tap
34. Lesson 25
35. Single Dragadiddle
36. Drag Paradiddle #1
37. Drag Paradiddle #2
38. Single Ratamacue
39. Double Ratamacue
40. Triple Ratamacue
The original 26 standard American Rudiments
There were originally 26 standard drum rudiments. The 26 original rudiments are included within the 40 PAS international rudiments above.
How many rudiments are there?
It really is a case of deciding how you label things. Don't get confused about the number of rudiments - it is a bit of a distraction. You don't need to get bogged down by arguments about how many drum rudiments there should be. Some people say 26 rudiments, some say 40. Some people include all of the sub-variations and hybrid rudiments. This would bring the total number of possible rudiment combinations to nearer 400 in total.
Hybrid rudiments and rudiment combinations
Fancy a Megadiddle? Or how about a Parafladdle-diddle-diddle?
This goes a bit beyond the scope of this article, but the point is you can combine any of the rudiments to create hybrid rudiments. You might also want to try playing one version of a rudiment with your hands, whilst your feet play an inverted variation of the pattern at the same time.
We'll go into more depth about hybrid rudiments in another article.
You might also want to check out our previous articles about rudiments: See all posts tagged "Rudiments"
Let us know if you have a question about any of the rudiments by posting a message below.
About Elephant Drums
We do drum lessons, run drumming events and organise community workshops throughout London.
I believe that the rudiments are extremely important.
I really love it!
I love it! I didnt find any article where you go deeper into hybrid and rudiment combination,would love to learn more 🙂 also when you play very long and fast phrase of rudiment or combination,do you think while playing(let’s say a solo improv) about it or it come naturally after lot of practice?I’m a begginner and often my mind get judgmental,and fluidity is anather factor to work out.
Thanks a lot for your tips!!
Blessing