Flam Drag

The flam drag is usually played in triplets. Taking a look at the sheet music below, you can see that all the strokes in a flam drag are played as 8th note triplets, except for the “trip” of each count, which is a 16th note triplet double stroke. If you take the flam accent and the flam drag drum rudiments and put them side-by-side, you’ll notice that the main difference between them is really what it’s played on the “trip” of each count - a single stroke tap on the flam accent and a double stroke tap on the flam drag.

The double stroke is represented with a diagonal line on the note stem on the sheet music below. So, you can play a flam drag from a flam accent. To do so, you just have to double the single strokes taps on the “trip” of each count of a flam accent. Learning how to play the flam accent, the drag, and the double stroke roll drum rudiments will get you playing the flam drag with a lot of control way faster.

After getting comfortable with the flam drag on a single surface, you can move on to learn how to apply it to the drum set. In the next drum beats the primary strokes of the flam drags are played as 8th notes. A single stroke grace note accompanies the first 8th note (flam) while a double stroke played as either a grace note or as a 16th note, accompanies the second 8th note (drag).

In the first exercise, we take a standard 8th note rock drum beat and spice up the hi-hat and snare drum patterns with flam drags. You can start practicing this pattern by playing the hand pattern of an 8th note rock drum beat – hi-hat on all 8th notes and snare drum on counts 2 and 4. After that, add a grace note on counts 1 and 3 on the hi-hat, and on 2 and 4 on the snare drum.

Once you can play all of that comfortably, add the drags in. When you get a consistent hand pattern happening, add the metronome to clean up everything. It’s at this point that you can add the bass drum on counts 1 and 3. Focus on mastering this pattern first. You can add different bass drum patterns later on.

The next pattern we’re going to take a look at is played in 3/4 time signature. As we mentioned earlier, the drags here are played as 16th notes instead of as grace notes. The first flam drag starts with a flam on count 1 and ends with a snare shot on count 2. The second flam drag is syncopated. It starts with a flam on the “and” of count 2 and concludes at the “and” of count 3 with a unison stroke between the snare drum and the hi-hat.

There are two flam drags played between count 1 and the “and” of 3 on the next drum fill. If you take the flams out of the exercise below you get a broken 16th note drum fill. Start by learning how to play the exercise without the flams. Play the 16th notes on counts 1 and 3 as doubles and the remaining strokes as singles. These doubles are actually the drags. Once you have that pattern down, add the flams where notated.

The next drum fill has the same rhythmic pattern as the previous one. The orchestration of the pattern is what sets it apart. Take any of the drum fills in the 40 drum rudiments and substitute some hand strokes with the bass drum. You’ll be amazed at what you can come up with.