Single Flammed Mill
Learn How To Play The Single Flammed Mill Drum Rudiment!
In this free drum lesson, Lionel Duperron teaches you how to play and practice the single flammed mill, and how to apply it to the drum set through a couple of unique drum beats and drum fills. The single flammed mill is one of the most interesting patterns to learn from the 40 drum rudiments. If you take a look at the big letters in the sheet music below, you can see that the main sticking for the single flammed mill is actually a reversed single paradiddle, also known as single mill.
A single paradiddle is played as R L R R or as L R L L, while the single mill is played as R R L R or as L L R L. So, it’s important that you practice the single paradiddle first and foremost. This will make it a lot easier to learn how to play the reversed single paradiddle.
Once you can play the single paradiddle and the single mill perfectly, learning the single flammed mill will be that much easier. Practice the exercise below without the flams, just to make sure you can play hand-to-hand single mills. Once you have that down, add a flam to the first note of each of the four-note 16th note single mills you’re playing. And there you have it; you can play a single flammed mill. This rudiment alternates within itself.
As you get to a point where you can play a very effortlessly single flammed mill, you may transition from practicing it on a single surface to applying it to the drum set through the following drum beats and drum fills.
The first exercise we have in this 40 drum rudiments free drum lesson is a tom-tom drum beat. The single flammed mil is played throughout the whole pattern between the floor tom and the snare drum as 16th notes. The bass drum pattern is kept simple, with strokes on counts 1 and 3. Remember to play the singles and doubles as taps, and not as full strokes. The flams should stand out from the remaining strokes.
Exercise #2 is a very challenging funky drum beat. The hand pattern is challenging enough, so learn that first before adding in the bass drum. The single flammed mill is played between the hi-hat and the snare drum. The left hand handles snare drum duties with taps and louder strokes on counts 2 and 4, while the right hand handles the hi-hat. This means that each flam is played between the snare drum and the hi-hat.
Being able to hear a flam played between different surfaces like a hi-hat and a snare drum can be a challenging thing to accomplish. Another challenge you’ll find here is following the snare shots on counts 2 and 4 with tap strokes on the “e” of those same counts.
Once you have the hands happening, add the bass drum on all quarter notes. When playing the bass drum with flams, remember that the primary stroke should be played in unison with the bass drum.
On exercise #3 the single flammed mill is played as a drum fill. Lionel plays this pattern leading with his left hand. During the whole exercise the singles fall on the snare drum, while the flammed doubles are played on the hi-tom (counts 1 and 3) and on the floor tom (counts 2 and 4).
Lionel decided to lead with his left hand because it enabled him to easily transition the left hand from the flammed double on the floor tom on counts 2 and 4 to playing the snare drum. You can work on this pattern leading with the right hand. However, it will make it way harder to transition from the floor tom to the snare drum.
The drum fill on the next exercise is played in its entirety on the toms. The pattern is lead by the right hand. Once again, Lionel chose to change his leading hand here because it facilitates all the transitions between the toms.
Once you feel this lesson has nothing more to teach you, move on to learn how to play the Swiss army triplet and the flam paradiddle-diddle 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 | |