AY Honors/Drumming & Percussion/Answer Key

A rudiment is a foundational drum pattern used as an exercise.

Informally it can mean any percussion exercise, but it is most commonly associated with snare drum patterns.

Rudiment Lists

There have been several attempts to formalise a recommended list of snare drum rudiments, especially among marching band instructors. The National Association of Rudimental Drummers, an organisation established to promote rudiment-based drumming, put forward a list of 26 rudiments.

If rudiments are to be used on a drumkit, the point of the rudiment is to end your fill on your left hand, ergo, leaving your right hand free to hit the cymbol. Much of the Rudiments are just multiple rudiments combined.

More recently, the Percussive Arts Society has extended this to a set of 40 "International Drum Rudiments".

They are

1. The Single Stroke Roll*
2. The Single Stroke Four
3. The Single Stroke Seven
4. The Multiple Bounce Roll
5. The Triple Stroke Roll
6. The Double Stroke Open Roll*
7. The Five Stroke Roll*
8. The Six Stroke Roll
9. The Seven Stroke Roll*
10. The Nine Stroke Roll*
11. The Ten Stroke Roll*
12. The Eleven Stroke Roll*
13. The Thirteen Stroke Roll*
14. The Fifteen Stroke Roll*
15. The Seventeen Stroke Roll
16. The Single Paradiddle*
17. The Double Paradiddle*
18. The Triple Paradiddle
19. The Single Paradiddle-Diddle
20. The Flam*
21. The Flam Accent*
22. The Flam Tap*
23. The Flamacue*
24. The Flam Paradiddle*
25. The Single Flammed Mill
26. The Flam Paradiddle-Diddle*
27. The Pataflafla
28. The Swiss Army Triplet
29. The Inverted Flam Tap
30. The Flam Drag
31. The Drag*
32. The Single Drag Tap*
33. The Double Drag Tap*
34. The Ratatap*
35. The Single Dragadiddle
36. The Drag Paradiddle 1*
37. The Drag Paradiddle 2*
38. The Single Ratamacue*
39. The Double Ratamacue*
40. The Triple Ratamacue*

Rudiments indicated with an astersik above are those also found in the NARD list.

Practical Use

Some rudiments are rather esoteric, such as the Single Flammed Mill and the Ratatap, and are used only in a very small number of drum parts. They can still provide valuable practice to all percussionists, however, as they exercise different degrees of hand-independence and fine stick control.

Others, such as the Flam, Drag and Paradiddle form the basis of a wide range of rhthms in orchestral, drum-kit and marching percussion. The Paradiddle in particular is very versatile, forming the basis of many popular music drum fills.

External link

• Vic Firth - Drum rudiment essentials.