Too Many Rudiments? by Cary Nasatir
While there are 40 rudiments endorsed by the Percussive Arts Society, there are nine that are mostly found in concert band and orchestra literature.
Are you obsessing about rudiments in your school programs? Certainly if you have a marching program the answer is no, but if you want your young drummers to play more musically in concert band and orchestra, you'll focus less on the entire list of rudiments and home in on the handful of more useful ones found in school literature.
For example, we (generally) don't use paradiddles in orchestral literature, as the accents from consecutive sticking (RLRR LRLL) are too uneven for classical work. Am I calling for an end to teaching rudiments? Absolutely not. The rudiments are percussion's scales, if you will, and like scales they are used to gain vocabulary, control, and technique.
Tap The Literature
Upon close inspection of the literature, there are nine rudiments that get used the most, and they are as follows: The Long Roll; Five Stroke Roll; Seven Stroke Roll; Nine Stroke Roll; Flam; Drag; Four Stroke Ruff; Flam Tap (4/4 & 6/8); and Flam Accent.
The stick control issues that drummers face can be remedied by practicing the roll daily. Start with very open strokes, to a very closed buzz roll, and back again to very open. One of two critical points is where the wrist no longer plays every stroke and lets the stick bounce (rolling from very open to closed). Similarly, coming back from a closed roll to an open roll, the hands have to control the bounced stroke at a slowing pace while seamlessly allowing individual wrist strokes to propel the sticks. These points of development are essential to a clean roll and significant in other areas of percussion including brushes, xylophone, timpani, and congas. Practicing the roll just a minute or two a day will produce a killer roll. While the band or orchestra is warming up with scales, drummers can be rolling. Bass drum, timpani, bells, and xylophone should also be rolled, utilizing single strokes at various dynamic levels.
The Five, Seven, and Nine Stroke Rolls are integral rudiments found in most concert band and orchestral drum parts. At 120 bpm, 5's are typically written as an eighth note figure, 7's as a dotted eight and 16th, and the 9 Stroke Roll usually has the duration of a quarter note. Make sure your percussionists can start these rolls with either hand as starting rolls with only the strong hand creates sticking problems and a loss in speed. Not developing a good roll from the weak hand is the main reason so many drummers drag and crush the roll. This drag and crush technique can be a challenge for the director to hear and impairs the flexibility of the drummer if left unchecked.
Flams add depth and a natural accent when played. In Rock and Jazz the flam may be played fairly open so as to listen to the rudiment as two notes (a grace note and prime note). In concert work, the Flam most often is played as one fat note with the grace note taking up the same space as the prime note. Because of the lower height of the stick executing the grace note, the note arrives a nano-second sooner than the higher held prime note. The sound is very much like its name: flam and not faaa lam.
The Drag is rich sounding yet at the same time delicate. Used slowly at ppp the Drag can conjure up the image of an approaching military regiment. Louder and faster, it spices up a 6/8 Irish jig. Like the Flam, it can be played open or closed. My personal preference in orchestral pieces is to play it closed which produces a shoom sound. The two grace notes are played with one hand while the prime note is struck with the other (LLR or RRL). This is also a rudiment that should be in the timpanist's repertoire i.e. "Procession of The Nobles", "Die Meistersinger". On timpani, however, all three notes are alternated (RLR or LRL) and not doubled.
The Four Stroke Ruff is a wonderful embellishment that has three grace notes and a prime note. All four strokes are alternated (RLRL or LRLR) and best played with the grace notes played as a 16th note triplet. Besides being played on snare and timpani, this figure gets a workout on castanets, tambourine, congas, and bongos.
The Flam Tap is used frequently in 4/4 and 6/8 time. The technical challenge is to play three strokes with each hand very quickly as the third stroke is used to set up each successive flam. When played as a shuffle, it becomes the meat and potatoes of the 6/8 march.
Finally, the Flam Accent enhances the 6/8 Flam Tap by adding color and fluid motion to a march rhythm.
These are must-have rudiments and will serve your percussionists well beyond school.
Cary Nasatir is a Ludwig artist and the Director of San Francisco's Nasatir School of Percussion. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Patten University (Oakland). Nasatir and the author of Praise And Worship Drumming...A Guide To Playing In Church (Hal Leonard Publishing). Questions can be directed through his website: http://www.nsopdrums.com
