Rudiments: The Big Three

MrInsanePolack

MrInsanePolack

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I have noticed that in my many years of drumming, singles, doubles, and paradiddles seem to be the staple rudiments that everyone learns and loves. You almost never hear people discussing ratamacues, swiss triplets, three/five/seven/nine stroke rolls, or any of the numerous others to any degree? Why is this? Is there something special, some historical basis of these three rudiments that lends them to be more applicable than others?

BTW, the ratamacue is my personal favorite.
 
If you think about it, the other rudiments are pretty much built on combinations of singles and doubles. If most people are like me, they probably use those other rudiments all the time without consciously thinking of it.

BTW, I like ratamacues, drags (the NARD definition), and hertas the best...
 
Seems logical to me that because singles, doubles, and paradiddles are easiest to play, they are going to be more commonly used. Not necessarily because they are prefered, just more accessible.
 
bud7h4 said:
singles, doubles, and paradiddles are easiest to play
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That is subjective to the player, minus the singles. I can do numerous other rudiments faster than doubles and paradiddles. Wouldn't that make them harder (for me at least)?
 
My big 2 are singles and ruffs - the third rudiment for me would either be flams or doubles.

But that's working backwards because I didn't learn the legit "modular approach", gradually mastering modules (rudimental patterns) of playing and putting them together to make drum parts.

I mostly picked up some rudiments as a matter of course from learning to play drums in the same way a child imitates bird calls, progressively solving (or avoiding) musical problems along the way.
 
My "bezzies" are five, seven and nine-stroke rolls. I think that singles, doubles and paradiddles are the most versatile rudiments, though.

Swiss army triplets are the work of Satan.
 
That's a good question. I learned them in roughly that order too, singles, doubles, then paradiddles. But I know there are other schools of thought that would go singles, doubles and flams, because those key rudiments appear to cover the major variations in stick motion. It's a subject that's open to debate.

As far as reasoning behind your list of staples, I'd say that alternating singles are the most most natural, like walking with your hands. Doubles are the beginning of multiple rebound strokes. Alternating doubles are the easiest way to create the illusion of a held note on a drum that has some sustain. And even if they're not explicitly noted, I'd include 5's, 7's, 9 's etc. as "doubles". Paradiddles are the first compound rudiment. They are the simplest combination of singles and doubles and have a lot of potential for rhythmic versatility- especially when adding accents or playing on different surfaces. But I'd include double & triple paradiddles, mill strokes, inverts, etc. in that category. Flams deserve a high ranking as well, since they're the beginning of grace note rudiments. They can add another dimension of sound when played at low volume, as well as dramatic power at high volume. They also open up another avenue of technique. In Pipe Band, buzzes are a staple of our playing, as is dead sticking. We basically have 3 sounds we can make: a tap, a dead stick (where the stick lightly rests on the head after striking to mute the strike and then releases) and buzzes. Now if you call a buzz separate (albeit a dense series of) multiple strokes, I guess we only have 2 sounds.

But for most musical situations other than traditional snare; how necessary is it to play involved flam or drag movements, dead sticking, ratamacues, hybrids and the like? Don't get me wrong; it's certainly valuable to expand your vocabulary and it will add so much to your playing and control of the instrument. But these 3 or 4 basics will go a long way.

In any case, actually in all cases, I recommend getting a qualified teacher to work on these.
 
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My favorite rudiment is the popadoodle. I get a lot of mileage from the paradiddlediddle, AKA the paradoublediddle. (Not really)
 
I come from a corps style rudimental snare drumming background, so I'm well versed in all PAS as well as a long list of hybrids. But when it comes to my set playing, the "big three" as well as a few other singles/double and inverted variations of those rudiments make their way into my playing more than anything. I think the reason being is that they just translate so well from the pad to the set and can be put into the context of a rock beat more easily than say, a Lesson 25, or double ratamacue.

I can play a paradiddle, puhduhduh, inverted paradiddle, and double paradiddle consecutively within a beat and have it flow much more than a flam drag, swiss triplet, and herta.
 
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Flams separate the men (women) from the boys (girls). That's where your technique really reveals itself.
 
8Mile said:
Flams separate the men (women) from the boys (girls). That's where your technique really reveals itself.
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When I played guitar, the drummer in my first band would play a "flam" with both strokes simultaneously, which sounded quite bad (and really defeats the purpose of the flam does it not?)

When I mentioned it to him, he seemed slightly annoyed and replied "this is just how I do it". So for the next two years I suffered through many agonizing POP! sounding "flams".
 
JustJames said:
Please elaborate...

(Newbie wanting to learn more, not smartarse being sarky.)
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Flams present a particular challenge from a stick control standpoint, dealing with the coordinative difficulties of getting accent and grace note heights uniform across a range of patterns and tempos. I'm talking about drum corps-style flams where the grace note is really soft, not the more open stuff drummers use on the drum set. Even in drum corps, you could always tell the best drum lines by how liberally they used flams.
 
My first drum teacher was a marching drum instructor. He taught 3 of the HS drum lines in the area so his lessons were ripe with the rudimental stuff. I play the hell out of drags, press rolls, flams. I too love the Swiss triplet although I more use it for a warm up on the pad. I can't imagine playing without my flams.
 
Magenta said:
Swiss army triplets are the work of Satan.
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Don't know if they are that bad, but they sure do piss me off sometimes.

JohnW said:
Paradiddles are the first compound rudiment; the simplest combination of singles and doubles
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I haden't really thought about this but yeah. What is the most logical next progression after R L? Why R R of course!

JustJames said:
The Swiss Army Knife on the other hand is very useful.
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There are not many statements more true than this.

Mike_L said:
puhduhduh
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I have never heard of this. What is the sticking?

8Mile said:
Flams separate the men (women) from the boys (girls). That's where your technique really reveals itself.
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Seems like lots of people on here really like them. I do too.




Anyone know what this is called? I learned it like probably ~20 years ago and was never told its name. Accent where you like, its the pattern itself that always gets me:

RRL LRR LLR RLL
 
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