Flamacue
Learn How To Play The Flamacue Drum Rudiment!
In this free drum lesson, Lionel Duperron will be teaching you how to play the flamacue, another pattern from the flam family of drum rudiments. In the video, Lionel shows you exactly how to play and practice the flamacue. He then takes the flamacue to the drum set to instruct you on how to apply it to the drum set for coming up with unique drum beats and drum fills.
If you’ve been through the lessons on the flam tap and flam accent drum rudiments, then it shouldn’t come to you as a shock that the flamacue incorporates another drum rudiment besides the flam. Taking a look at the sheet music below, if you drop the grace notes on all quarter notes and the accents on the “e” of counts 1 and 3, you can see that the main pattern inside the flamacue is actually a five stroke ruff (a ruff is a short single stroke roll). Thus, it’s important you check the lessons on the single stroke roll and the flam drum rudiments before going any further with this one.
The flamacue has a lot of stuff going on. It’s best for you if you start practicing this rudiment in a step-by-step approach, to make sure you develop it properly. Start by practicing the alternating five stroke ruffs as taps (lower volume strokes), with no flams or accents incorporated. Work on getting consistent sounding strokes. You can do so by keeping the stick heights approximately at the same level. Count out loud as you do so. Once you have that down, add the flams in.
At this point you should have a very solid pattern combining flams with 16th note taps. Before adding the accent, practice the transition between the first flam and the accent exclusively with both left and right hand lead. When you feel confident in playing this transition, add the accents to the “e” on counts 1 and 3. At this time, you should have no problems in playing the flamacue, that is, if you were thorough in your approach, and followed these basic steps.
Once you can perform a very solid flamacue on your drum pad or snare drum, check the following drum beats and drum fills. Lionel Duperron wrote them especially to get you to apply the flamacue to the drum set.
On exercise #1, the flamacue is played between the hi-hat and the snare drum. Learn the hand pattern first and only then add the bass drum in. The 16th notes of the flamacue are played on the hi-hat during counts 1 and 3. Play the taps on the bow of the top cymbal of the hi-hat to get quieter notes out of it. Strike the edge of the closed hi-hat when you go to play the accented note. This will get a louder note out of the hi-hat.
The last flam of the flamacues is played as a snare shot on counts 2 and 4. The combination of the right hand flam on count 4 with the 8th note played immediately after on the floor tom with the right hand is actually a flam tap.
The next drum beat incorporates only one flamacue. Interestingly enough, this flamacue is syncopated – starts on the “and” of count 1 and ends on the “and” of count 2. The flamacue is played between the snare drum and the hi-hat in the same manner of the previous exercise. The bass drum is incorporated on counts 1, 2 and 4, and also on the “and” of 1.
While practicing this drum beat, keep in mind that the bass drum played on the “and” of count 1 should line up perfectly with the primary stroke of the flam and not with the grace note. In addition to the flamacue, there are also flams on the “and” of counts 3 and 4.
The flamacue is one of the better drum rudiments for creating cool sounding drum fills. In this next exercise, a right hand flamacue is played between the hi-tom and the snare drum on count 1, with the last flam being played on the floor tom on count 2. Afterwards, play the bass drum on the “and” of count 2 and on count 3. This drum fill ends with a short broken 16th note single stroke roll executed between the hi-tom and mid-tom on count 4.
The last drum fill on this 40 drum rudiments free drum lesson, incorporates a right hand flamacue and a left hand flamacue morphing into a single stroke roll. The right hand flamacue is played on count 1 between the floor tom and the snare drum, and on count 2 with a flam on the hi-tom.
On count 3 of the drum fill, Lionel plays part of a left hand flamacue between the snare drum and the hi-tom. However, instead of ending the flamacue with a flam on count 4, he plays a 16th note single stroke roll between the mid-tom and floor tom. This is another great example of how to spice up your rudimental drum fills and drum beats. You can take parts of drum rudiments as you please and use them to come up with very original ideas on the drum set, like Lionel did in this exercise.
Once you’ve mastered this drum lesson, check the free drum lessons on the flam paradiddle and the single flammed mill 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 | |