Drum Rudiments: All 40 With Stickings and Playback

Yes. All 40 rudiments, the playback and the speed ramp are free, need no account and run in your browser.

The Percussive Arts Society lists 40 International Drum Rudiments in four families: 15 roll rudiments, 4 diddle rudiments, 11 flam rudiments and 10 drag rudiments. 26 of them come from the older Standard 26 American Drum Rudiments; tick Original 26 only to see just those.

Start with the single stroke roll, the double stroke open roll and the single paradiddle, then add the flam, the flam tap and the drag. Between them they cover alternating strokes, doubles, accents and grace notes, which every other rudiment combines.

Whatever tempo lets you play the rudiment evenly and relaxed, often 50 to 70 BPM to begin with. The tempo here counts quarter notes, so a single paradiddle in sixteenth notes at 60 BPM is four strokes a second. Once it is clean, raise it a few BPM at a time, or let the speed ramp do it.

Yes. A practice pad, a cushion or your knees will do; the sticking matters more than the surface. Use this page for the pattern and the click, and practise with the left hand lead too.

A flam is one soft grace note just before a full stroke in the other hand, written lR. A drag is two soft grace notes, a quick double stroke, before the main stroke, written llR. Ruff is an older name for the drag, and some books also use it for three or more single-stroke grace notes before a stroke.

Rudiments are the short sticking patterns that drumming is built from: single strokes, double strokes, paradiddles, flams and drags. The Percussive Arts Society (PAS) published the 40 International Drum Rudiments in 1984, adding 14 to the Standard 26 American Drum Rudiments that drum corps and military drummers had played for generations. Learn them and you have the building blocks of most fills, grooves and solos.

Roll rudiments are built on single strokes (RLRL), on multiple bounce or triple strokes, or on double strokes (RRLL); the numbered rolls, from the five stroke roll to the seventeen stroke roll, are double stroke rolls that end on an accent, named after their total number of strokes. Diddle rudiments mix singles and doubles, starting with the single paradiddle, RLRR LRLL. Flam rudiments add a flam: one quiet grace note from one hand just before a full stroke from the other. Drag rudiments add a drag: two quiet grace notes from one hand before a stroke from the other.

Start slowly enough to play every stroke correctly: relaxed hands, the same sound from both sticks, accents clearly louder than the taps. Play with the click until it disappears under your sticks, then raise the tempo a few BPM at a time. The speed ramp does this for you, for example from 60 to 100 BPM, adding 5 BPM every four repeats. PAS advises practising each rudiment open (slow) to close (fast) and back to open, or at an even, moderate march tempo. Switch to left hand lead as well, so both hands get the same work.

Each box is one stroke: R for the right hand (filled), L for the left (outlined). A > above a box is an accent. Small letters before a stroke are grace notes from the other hand: one for a flam (lR), two for a drag (llR). A z marks a buzz stroke. Wider boxes are longer notes, each group is beamed as on the PAS sheet, and the numbers underneath count the beats. In the rolls, each pair of 32nd notes on the same hand is one double stroke.

No. The free tools need no account and no download. They run in your browser, and nothing you play or drop in is uploaded.

Yes, in any current mobile browser. MIDI keyboards and pad controllers need Chrome, Edge or Opera, on a computer or an Android phone.

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