PAS #26 · Flam rudiments
Flam Paradiddle-Diddle
12 main strokes, 2 grace notes over 4 beats. Read it, hear it, and slow it down until it is even.
lRLRRLL rLRLLRR
Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are the quiet grace notes of a flam or drag.
What the flam paradiddle-diddle is
A paradiddle-diddle with a flam on the first note. Six notes per group with two diddles, so it loops in a triplet feel without changing hands.
How to practice it
- Six notes per group in triplets — count "1-trip-let 2-trip-let" so the flams land on the beat.
- The two diddles at the end of each group must stay even and soft.
- Play the paradiddle-diddle without the flam first, then add it.
Where it leads
The flam paradiddle-diddle belongs to the flam rudiments family, and it feeds directly into triplet-based fills and six-stroke patterns around the kit. Get it even at a slow tempo before you move on — every rudiment built on top of it inherits whatever unevenness you leave here.
Reading the notation above
Both hands play the snare drum, so every notehead sits in the third space of the staff and the sticking letters underneath tell you which hand plays which note. Capital letters are full strokes; small letters are grace notes. The small noteheads with a slash through the stem are the grace notes of the ornament — they are played almost simultaneously with the note that follows, not as separate beats. The marks above the staff are accents: hit those notes harder. Full details in the drum notation guide.
Rudiment data last updated . Every diagram here, in the printable PDF and in the chart image comes from one dataset, so the paper and the screen cannot disagree.