Swiss Army Triplet
Learn How To Play The Swiss Army Triplet Drum Rudiment!
Welcome to the free drum lesson on the Swiss army triplet. In the video, Lionel Duperron discusses the Swiss army triplet - how to play it accurately and how to practice it to achieve the best results possible. He then shows you drum set application of the Swiss army triplet to drum beats and drum fills.
The Swiss army triplet was one of the last drum rudiments to be added to the 40 drum rudiments. It’s actually very similar to the flam accent. The flam accent is basically a single stroke roll with a flam on the first note, which is mostly played in triplets. The Swiss army triplet sounds just like a flam accent. Instead of being build upon a single stroke roll it has a double stroke with a flam on the first note, followed by a single stroke. As you can see from the sheet music below, the Swiss army triplet doesn’t alternate naturally within itself. You’ll have to learn how to play the Swiss army with both right hand and left hand lead.
It’s important to know how to play quality single stroke roll, double stroke roll, and flam drum rudiments before going into this lesson. Knowing how to play the single flammed mill is also of great use here, since, just like the Swiss army triplet, it has a single right after flammed double stroke.
Once you can play the Swiss army triplet with confidence, you can start working on the following drum beats and drum fills.
The first drum beat that incorporates the Swiss army triplet has it spread between the hi-hat and the snare drum. Most of the Swiss army triplet is played on the hi-hat. The only exceptions are the flammed snare shots on counts 2 and 4.
Although this exercise seems simple on paper, going from a flammed stroke on the snare drum to a tap on the hi-hat on the “trip” of counts 2 and 4 can be a bit of a challenge. This is so because the primary note of the flam, and the tap following it are actually a double. So, by going from the snare drum to the hi-hat you’ll be playing the strokes of a double stroke on two different surfaces. Watch out for that. Add the bass drum on counts 1 and 3 once you have the hand pattern mastered.
The second pattern in this 40 drum rudiments free drum lesson is an 8th note triplet tom-tom drum beat. In this exercise, the singles and the grace notes are always played on the hi-tom. The doubles are performed between the snare and the floor tom on counts 2 and 4, and exclusively on the floor tom on counts 1 and 3.
The double played between the snare and the floor tom adds the same level of challenge to this drum beat as did the double executed between the snare and the hi-hat on the previous exercise. In the video, you’ll notice Lionel plays the second stroke of the double on the floor tom with a sweeping motion. He used the momentum gained from the rebound of the first stroke of the double stroke on the snare drum, and just swept is arm in the direction of the floor tom to hit it on time.
Once you get pretty competent with the hand pattern, add the bass drum on all quarter notes.
This next drum fill is in 12/8 time signature. The flams are played on the snare drum, the singles on the hi-tom and mid-tom, and the second stroke from the double stroke is played on the floor tom. The double that is played between the snare and the floor tom adds the same level of challenge to this drum fill as did the double executed between those same instruments on the previous exercise. Use the tips given on the previous exercise to be able to play a double stroke between two different surfaces.
Exercise #4 is another drum fill in 12/8 time signature. It’s a great pattern to use in any triplet based style of music. For mastering this drum fill it’s enough to master the Swiss army triplet played on count 1, since the pattern is repeated for the remaining counts. The single on the Swiss army triplet is played on the snare and the flam on the hi-tom. The double is spread between the hi-tom and the floor tom, which is even farther than going from the snare to the floor tom on exercises #2 and #3, or from the hi-hat to the snare on exercise #1. This is the most challenging of the four exercises.
Most of the drum fills in this web site are one bar long. You can, however, morph them into any other sized drum fill you want. Just take any of the lessons on drum rudiments, pick a drum fill and remove parts of the pattern to create different sized fills. You can also put together one bar drum fills by mixing one bar drum fills from the different drum rudiments.
Once you’re done studying yet another pattern from the 40 drum rudiments, you can move on to learn how to play the inverted flam tap and the flam drag 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 | |