Flam Tap

What the flam tap is

A flam followed immediately by a tap with the same hand — so each hand plays a loud stroke and then a quiet one, and the pattern alternates. It is the best exercise there is for the up-and-down motion drummers call stroke control, because the accent hand has to land high, play low, and get back up again. Watch that the tap does not creep louder as you speed up.

How to practise it

• This is a stroke-control exercise disguised as a flam rudiment: the accent hand plays high, then low, then has to get back up again.
• Watch the tap. It should stay quiet at every tempo — if it creeps up towards the flam, the accent hand is not lifting after the tap.
• Practise the accent-tap motion on one hand alone, no flam, until the up-and-down is automatic.
• Keep the grace note quiet and low throughout. It is easy to forget about it while concentrating on the tap.

Where it leads

The flam tap belongs to the flam rudiments family, and it feeds directly into the inverted flam tap, the flam paradiddle and Swiss army triplet. 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.