Drum rudiments for beginners: single strokes, paradiddles and flams first

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Rudiments are the basic sticking patterns of drumming, the scales and arpeggios of the instrument. They build control, evenness and speed, and almost every fill and groove you will ever play is made from them.

The 40 international rudiments

The Percussive Arts Society (PAS) publishes a list of 40 International Drum Rudiments. It includes the traditional 26 American rudiments along with others drawn from drum corps, orchestral, European and contemporary drumming. They are grouped into roll rudiments, diddle rudiments, flam rudiments and drag rudiments. The full list, with notation, is on the PAS website. You do not need all 40 to start. A handful, played well, will carry you a long way.

Stick notation

Rudiments are written with R for right hand and L for left. Capital letters or accent marks show louder strokes.

The first rudiments to learn

Single stroke roll: R L R L R L R L. Alternating single strokes. It sounds simple; making both hands equal in volume and spacing is the work of years.
Double stroke roll: R R L L R R L L. Two strokes per hand. The second stroke of each pair tends to be weaker; aim to make it match the first. At higher speeds the second stroke comes partly from a controlled rebound.
Single paradiddle: R L R R L R L L. A mix of singles and doubles that leads with alternating hands. Accent the first note of each group. It turns up everywhere in fills and grooves.
Flam: a soft grace note from one hand just before a full stroke from the other, so they sound almost together, like one fat note. Written with a small grace note before the main note. Practise alternating flams: right-hand flam (left grace, right main), then left-hand flam.
Single stroke four and single stroke seven: short bursts of singles, useful for fills.
Five stroke roll: two doubles and an accented single (R R L L R). It teaches you to end a roll cleanly.

Getting the strokes right

Good rudiments depend on stick heights and relaxed motion:

Full stroke: start high, hit, let the stick bounce back high.
Down stroke: start high, hit, stop the stick low (for an accent followed by a soft note).
Tap: start low, hit softly, stay low.
Up stroke: start low, play softly, and lift the stick high ready for an accent.

Paradiddles with accents use all four. Thinking about heights instead of force keeps the sound even and the hands relaxed.

Building speed with a metronome

Find a tempo where the rudiment is perfect: even spacing, even volume, relaxed hands. This may be very slow.
Play it for a set time, say two minutes, without stopping.
Raise the tempo by a small step and repeat.
When it gets tense or uneven, go back a few steps. Practising mistakes at speed only trains the mistakes.
Record your top clean tempo in a notebook so you can see progress over weeks.

Another approach is to start slow, speed up gradually to your limit and slow back down again, all without stopping. It trains control across a range of tempos.

Make rudiments musical

Play a paradiddle with the right hand on the hi-hat and the left on the snare: it turns into a groove.
Move single strokes around the toms to make fills.
Add the bass drum on every quarter note underneath any rudiment.

A short daily routine

2 minutes singles, 2 minutes doubles, 2 minutes paradiddles, 2 minutes flams, all on a practice pad with a metronome.
Once a week, add one new rudiment from the PAS list.

Which rudiment are you stuck on, and what is your clean tempo? Share it in the comments.