12-How to Play the Drums: Flam Rudiments

This lesson is part of the series: Introduction to Drumming: The Basics, Drumming Practice: Rudiments, Drumming Lessons: Basics through Advanced

The “Flam” is a very important and widely used rudiment, both on the drum kit and on snare drum in marching bands etc. There is a whole family of “Flam Rudiments” which are rudiments that have flams in them. We will just learn the most simple ones here. This is the second family of rudiments that Jim has taught us (the other being the Paradiddle family of rudiments).

Flams use a special type of note called a “Grace note” or “Ornament”. A grace note is included in the music written in very small print just before the main accented note, which is much bigger. The grace note is of course played extremely softly. In fact it should be as soft as you can make it and effectively blended into the note it is attached to, with the stick only just above the pad or drum. A grace note has no rhythmic value of its own, and you cannot play a grace note by itself. It must be attached to a main note. It is sometimes called an “ornament” because it is just there to make the main note sound prettier. The grace note is played just before the main note. They are so close together though, that they are almost at the same time (together, they should sound like flam and not like fuh-lam).

In addition to learning about how flams should sound and what they are, Jim will also show us how you play flams, flam taps and inverted flam taps.

This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

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Let me introduce myself. My name is Jim McCarthy. I'm a drum clinician and teacher and have specialized in pure technique for many years. I consider myself still a student as well, because I have a passion for constantly learning. I learn every day when I watch other drummers, and I analyze what works and what doesn’t. Performing, Educating and Learning have been my life and my living for well over 20 years.

I've had a tremendously broad background in drumming. I've played in rock bands, orchestras, marching bands - everything from high-brow contemporary music to Latin American stuff.

I spent six years at university studying percussion performance full time, and I ended up with a...

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