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Okay, the flam is one of the more important rudiments. Besides singles and doubles I usually
go to flams next with my students. Basically, if I was to do a right-hand flam, left hand
is low, plays a very low, like a grace note basically. Just goes like this. Just a little
tap. The right hand, if I'm doing a right-handed flam is coming from this level. So, automatically
I'm going to set up a left-handed flam afterwards as a mirror image of what I'm doing here.
So, after I aim to hit at the same time, I'm popping up and I'm ready to do a left-handed
flam. The best way to work on that is just to isolate the left hand by itself, and just
give a little tap, and then pull it up. It's a lot of work at first, but if you do it enough
times the muscle memory will take over and it won't be so much eventually. Just be patient
with your practicing and you will get results. Basically, so we just practiced the left hand
by itself, coming from this from the drum, we create that grace note, and then pull it
up--so, like that. If you do it enough, you'll get it. So right-hand flam is this. Now, that's
the practice the opposite. The left hand flam, we're just going to do--just work on just
that. And essentially what I'm doing is aiming to hit the sticks at the same time, but because
of the stick height, and just the right timing, you get that fat sound. I don't want--a good
flam would not be. It's too loose. It's got to be close together. Okay, after you learn
the basic flam, you alternate them, you can add some other patterns to them. One of my
favorites is a Swiss Army triplet. And all that really is, is a flam followed by two
more notes. It's flam, right, left, and then you repeat. So, flam, right, left. Again,
flam, right, left. Now, notice the only note that's accented, the loudest note of all of
them, is coming from here. Flam, right, left. Again, flam, right, left. Basically that's
a right hand Swiss Army triplet. I can reverse everything and it's this. Flam, left, right.
Okay, so one of my favorites, because it really works well around the drum set and it's a
great warm up, is basically an offset double if you think about it because both hands are
playing doubles, but the timing creates a three note pattern. Okay, so you speed it
up. Or slow. Swiss Army triplets or those alternating flams.