Snare Drum Rudiments: Tips from the Pros 
        

Firstly, rudiments are not an "end" but rather a "means" to an end. 
During my earlier years of teaching rudiments, I made sure my 
students could recognize and play not only the basic 13 but the 
entire 26 rudiments then prescribed and endorsed by the National 
Association of Rudimental Drummers (have I dated myself enough?) 
However, many of these rudimental "experts" experienced difficulty 
executing them when faced with a line of written drum notation. So, 
I tried something different: I began teaching the rudiments in 
combinations to aid in a continuous flow of executing a written 
line. That is, I taught them to "overlap" one rudiment into another. 
I began by using the example of two names: For example, "Nelson and 
Nathan." The common letter to both names is the letter "N." "N" 
being the last letter in Nelson and the first letter of Nathan. 
Thus, if I combined the two names without doubling the common letter 
I'd arrive at "NelsoNathan."
Next, I used an old standard drum solo to illustrate how this worked 
in drumming. The Connecticut Halftime is perfect. We discussed the 
Seven-Stroke left flam/right flam; the seven-stroke right 
paradiddle/left paradiddle and the right tap left flam/right flam. 
Think about the opening line of this solo. If the student begins 
with the correct sticking of the seven stroke roll the hands are 
"automatically" in position for a left flam which is followed 
immediately by a right flam. The same holds true for the 
"Seven-Stroke Right Paradiddle/Left Paradiddle. The last stroke of 
the seven is the down stroke of the paradiddle.
This simplified method of applying the rudiments has worked wonders 
for me and the students of Marshall ISD. I do not have a 6th, 7th, 
or 8th grader who cannot play through the four standards after using 
this method: The Connecticut Halftime, The Downfall of Paris, The 
Three Camps and Hell on the Wabash.
    Anthony Robinson
    Marshall, Texas

I was taught that, when you "run down" the rudiment, the very first 
move is to bring both sticks up (straight) a la the Pratt book. This 
interpretation has been largely lost through the years because of 
intentional short cuts by many teachers and performers. It's 
important to be current with style interpretation, but, as in many 
other things in life, knowing where you've come from is important to 
understand how we got to where we are.
    Jim Gault

While the rudiments that are on this chart are very important, I 
urge band directors and instrumental specialists to hone in on nine 
rudiments that are "must have" for junior and senior high school 
symphonic band and orchestral literature. They are: 
The Long Roll
5 Stroke Roll
7 Stroke Roll
9 Stroke Roll
Flam
Drag
4 Stroke Ruff
Flam Tap in 4/4
Flam Tap in 6/8
Flam Accent. 
The Flam, Drag , and 4 Stroke Ruff are also very important to 
timpani andxylophone development.
While I teach the Flam and the Drag "closed" for snare drum, they 
should be fairly open for mallet work (the drag should be played as 
single strokes and not doubled: i.e RLR LRL not RRL LLR).
When playing any of the more simple applications of the rudiments, I 
try to keep the approach as legato as possible, with the rebound 
intense at all levels of middle school and high school. I am 
starting to NOT use the term "staccato" or talk about a down stroke 
to not confuse them. When the stick is stopped I just tell the kids 
to let the stick rebound to 1 inch. It seems to work and more over 
the quality of sound is becoming better. 
I tried it with East Coast Jazz this summer since they were all the 
same level players from different walks of life from a tech. 
standpoint. By the end there were still tech. differences player to 
player time ran out on us, but their sound improved a great deal by 
trying to get them to dig in and get more beats for the money.
    John Riley
    East Coast Jazz