Flam Paradiddle
Learn How To Play The Flam Paradiddle Drum Rudiment!
This next free drum lesson gives you the opportunity to learn how to play another one of the flam drum rudiments – the flam paradiddle, also known by some as the flamadiddle. In the video, Lionel Duperron shows you how to play and practice the flam paradiddle, before showcasing some applications of this drum rudiment on a drum set.
The flam paradiddle continues with the same trend we’ve seen on all the other flam-based drum rudiments - combine the flam with other patterns from the 40 drum rudiments. In the case of the flam paradiddle, we have a single paradiddle combined with a flam. Taking a look at the sheet music below, you can see the sticking of a single paradiddle on the big letters – R L R R L R L L…etc. If you haven’t learned how to play the single paradiddle or the flam, now is a good time to do so.
If you know how to play a single paradiddle, you just have to add a flam on the first stroke of each single paradiddle to have yourself a flam paradiddle. As you practice this rudiment, you can count it out loud as 16th notes, or like so: lR (flam) L (a) R (did) R (ddle) rL (flam) R (a) L (di) L (dle)…etc. The flam paradiddle alternates within itself.
This is a great chops building exercise. Take your time when practicing the exercise below. Start slow and make sure you play the stroke sequence accurately. Doing things properly will hail great results, and you’ll build a solid technical foundation that will serve you for years to come; just be patient.
Once you can play the flam paradiddle pretty accurately, you can learn the drum beats and drum fills in this free drum lesson. It’s very cool to be able to play the drum rudiments proficiently in a single surface like a snare drum or a practice pad. However, getting to play them around the drum set in different drum fills and drum beats is a totally different world, and will challenge you like never before.
The first drum beat on this free drum lesson has the flam paradiddle played as 16th notes between the hi-hat and the snare drum. The flam paradiddles on counts 1 and 3 are executed exclusively on the hi-hat. The flam paradiddles on counts 2 and 4 start out with a flammed snare shot into three 16th note tap strokes on the hi-hat. Add the bass drum on all quarter notes to conclude this drum beat.
Taking a look at the sheet music for exercise #2, you can see that this drum beat encompasses only one flam paradiddle, which is played on count 1 between the hi-hat and the hi-tom. In the video, Lionel leads the flam paradiddle with his right hand. If Lionel led with the left hand, he’d have to move the right hand fast enough to let the left hand play a diddle on the hi-tom. This comes to show how ambidexterity is something very useful. It gives you a lot more options and a way better technique.
The next exercise is a 16th note drum fill developed around the flam paradiddle. The biggest issue you’ll find here is getting consistent sounding diddles from the toms. At slower speeds you can use full wrist strokes to play them, but as you get to faster tempos you may feel the need to bounce the doubles off of the tom skin.
Due to the sogginess of these drums you’ll get muddy sounding doubles. So, the best way to go about this is to develop your forearm muscles to a point where your wrists can play doubles at very fast speeds on toms. A good alternative is to use a quick snap of the fingers after playing the first stroke with the wrist. This will give the second stroke way more velocity, and thus a similar sound to the first one when striking the drumhead.
The last exercise on this free drum lesson has four 16th note flam paradiddles played between the floor tom and the snare drum. It’s better if you play this drum fill leading with your right hand. It will make it that much easier to perform. Once again, watch out for the doubles on the floor tom. Use the tips we gave you on the previous exercise to get them to sound even.
Once you’re done with this lesson, revisit the lesson on the single paradiddle and add a flam before any single paradiddle on each drum beat and drum fill. This is a great idea for coming up with four new flam paradiddle patterns. The flam paradiddle is not the only pattern from the flam family of drum rudiments to encompass a paradiddle rudiment. The flam paradiddle-diddle and the single flammed mill drum rudiments incorporate paradiddle type drum rudiments. Once you’re done with this lesson, take a look at the free drum lessons on those two drum rudiments.
Flam Based Rudiments |
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| Flam | Flam Paradiddle | Inverted Flam Tap |
| Flam Tap | Single Flammed Mill | Flam Drag |
| Flam Accent | Flam Paradiddle-diddle | Pataflafla |
| Flamacue | Swiss Army Triplet | |