PAS #22 · Flam rudiments
Flam Tap
grace LRR grace RLL — 4 main strokes, 2 grace notes over 2 beats in eighth notes (quavers), 2 accents. Loop it from 50 BPM and build to 80.
R = right hand · L = left · small raised letters are grace notes · > = accent. The count runs along the bottom.
Next moves
What the flam tap is
Read it, hear it, and slow it down until it is even.
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 practice 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.
- Practice 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 cells underneath tell you which hand plays which note, with the count under every stroke. Capital letters are full strokes; small raised 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.
Tempo ladder
Tap a rung to set the speed. Play 8 clean loops before moving up.
More flam rudiments
Questions
What is the sticking for the flam tap?
grace LRR grace RLL. R = right hand, L = left hand; the small raised letters are grace notes, played softly just before the main stroke by the other hand.
How fast should I play it?
Start slow enough that every stroke is even — around 50 BPM — then go up 4–5 BPM at a time. 80 BPM is a good first target.
How is the flam tap written in notation?
On the snare line: the third space of the drum staff (stave), stems up, as eighth notes (quavers), with an accent mark (>) over the loud strokes, and grace notes drawn small just before their main note. The count runs under the sticking: 1 &.
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.