The 40 Drum Rudiments, Explained in Plain English

The standard list of forty rudiments is the traditional vocabulary of snare drumming, and almost every groove, fill and solo you have ever heard is built from a handful of them. This page writes all forty out, grouped by family, and says plainly what each one is for — because "here is the sticking" on its own is not much use.

How to read the sticking

Capital R and L are the main strokes — the ones you play at normal or accented volume. Lowercase r and l are grace notes: they land a fraction of a second before the main stroke that follows and are played quietly. A pattern written lR is a grace note with the left hand immediately followed by a main stroke with the right.

One thing worth saying plainly: the sticking is the whole rudiment. Two patterns with identical rhythm sound completely different if the hands are ordered differently, because the leading hand is the one you naturally accent. If the page says RLRR LRLL, play exactly that — swapping hands to make it easier is how you end up with a lick that only works one way round. If you want to see how these letters map onto a staff, the guide to drum notation symbols covers the full page.

Rolls (14)

Rolls are sustained patterns. They exist to let a drummer hold a continuous sound, which a single stroke cannot do at speed. Start here — everything else assumes you can already produce an even stream of notes, and the different types of drum roll all grow out of that single skill.

• Single Stroke Roll — RLRL. Alternating hands. The most basic coordination pattern in drumming and the foundation of everything else.
• Single Stroke Four — RLRL as a four-note grouping. Used to place exactly four even notes in a fill.
• Single Stroke Seven — RLRLRLR. Seven notes, which lands you on the opposite hand from where you started — useful for resolving a fill.
• Multiple Bounce Roll — RLRLRLRL with multiple rebounds per stroke. The orchestral buzz roll. Produces a smooth, unbroken hum rather than distinct notes.
• Double Stroke Roll — RRLL. Two controlled strokes per hand. The first genuinely awkward pattern for most beginners and the one that pays back the most practice.
• Five Stroke Roll — RRLLR. A double stroke roll capped with a single accent. Common as a fill ending.
• Six Stroke Roll — RLLRRL. Six notes with a built-in accent. Popular in funk and gospel chops.
• Seven Stroke Roll — RRLLRRL. Seven notes, accented at the end.
• Nine Stroke Roll — RRLLRRLLR. Nine notes. The extra length is what makes it feel like a real roll rather than a flourish.
• Ten Stroke Roll — RRLLRRLLRR. Even in count, which makes it land naturally on a beat.
• Eleven Stroke Roll — RRLLRRLLRRL. Odd count, so it alternates which hand leads.
• Thirteen Stroke Roll — RRLLRRLLRRLLR. Thirteen notes. Standard rudimental snare vocabulary.
• Fifteen Stroke Roll — RRLLRRLLRRLLRRL. Fifteen notes. Where rolls start to feel long enough to fill a bar.
• Seventeen Stroke Roll — RRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLR. The longest on the standard list. Marching snare staple.

Paradiddles (5)

Paradiddles exist to solve a specific problem: in a straight stream of alternating strokes, one hand always leads and the other always follows. A paradiddle inserts a double stroke so the lead switches. Once you can play them evenly, the whole kit opens up, because your hands stop being specialists and start being interchangeable.

• Single Paradiddle — RLRR LRLL. Four notes with the double on the third stroke. The single most useful rudiment after the rolls.
• Double Paradiddle — RLRLRR LRLRLL. Six notes, double at the end. Sits naturally in triplet feels.
• Triple Paradiddle — RLRLRLRR LRLRLRLL. Eight notes. Long, flowing, and excellent for building endurance.
• Paradiddle-diddle — RLRRLL. Six notes, two doubles. Very common in fills around the toms.
• Paradiddle Accent — RLRRLRLL with accents on the first and third notes. A dynamics exercise disguised as a pattern.

Flams (11)

A flam is a quiet grace note landing immediately before a main stroke. The two strokes are nearly simultaneous but not quite, and the small gap produces a thicker, fatter sound. This is the family that turns a plain backbeat into something that sounds like a record, and it is the first family where dynamics matter as much as the notes.

• Flam — lR. One grace note, one main stroke. Start here and get the spacing tight.
• Flam Accent — lR L R rL R L. A flam followed by alternating singles. Turns a single flam into a usable phrase.
• Flam Tap — lR rL. Flam then a tap with the opposite hand. Short and snappy.
• Flamacue — lR L R L rL. A classic rudimental phrase with a flam at both ends.
• Flam Paradiddle — lR L R R rL R L L. A paradiddle with a flam on the lead. Dense and impressive.
• Single Flam Accent — lR L R rL R. Shorter relative of the flam accent, five notes.
• Flam Paradiddle-diddle — lR L R R rL L. Flam plus paradiddle-diddle. Common in drumline writing.
• Pataflafla — lR L R rL. Two flams framing three strokes. Sounds far more complicated than it is.
• Swiss Army Triplet — lR L R rL R L. A flam on the first note of a triplet feel. Distinctly European military in flavour.
• Inverted Flam Tap — lR rL R rL R. Alternating flams. A great evenness exercise.
• Flam Drag — lR lrL R rL rlR. A flam combined with a drag. The hardest pattern in the flam family.

Drags (7)

A drag is two quiet grace notes immediately before a main stroke, rolled tightly enough to sound like a single thick attack. Where a flam thickens a note, a drag rolls a short burst of sound into it. The distinction between the two confuses a lot of beginners, so if the families blur together, read the side-by-side breakdown of flams versus drags before going further.

• Drag (Ruff) — lrR. The base pattern. Two grace notes then a main stroke.
• Single Drag Tap — lrR L rlL R. A drag followed by alternating taps.
• Double Drag Tap — lrR L lrR rlL R rlL. Two drags per phrase. Considerably harder than it looks.
• Lesson 25 — lrR L R rlL R L. A named traditional rudiment with a drag at each end.
• Single Dragadiddle — lrR L R R rlL R L L. A drag bolted onto the front of a paradiddle.
• Drag Paradiddle #1 — lrR L R R rlL R L L. Drag opening, paradiddle body, accent resolved at the end.
• Drag Paradiddle #2 — lrR L R R L rlL R L L. An extra stroke turns the phrase around and reverses the hand order.

Ratamacues (3)

Ratamacues combine a drag with a stroke pattern that moves around the drums. They are uncommon in pop but standard in marching and drum-corps writing, and they are excellent for building coordination between the hands and feet. Learn the rhythm slowly before you chase any speed, because a ratamacue played fast and uneven sounds like noise rather than a phrase.

• Single Ratamacue — lrR L R L. One drag, then a descending pattern. Learn the rhythm before the speed.
• Double Ratamacue — lrR L lrR L R L. Two drags. Where the pattern starts to sound like a phrase.
• Triple Ratamacue — lrR L lrR L lrR L R L. Three drags. The longest and most demanding on the list.

How to actually practice them

Do not work through the list in order. Learn the rudiments that appear in the music you want to play, and learn four of them properly before collecting the rest. Working down the page from number one is the most common way to spend a year and end up able to play very little.

::: callout

The order that works for most people: Single Stroke Roll → Double Stroke Roll → Single Paradiddle → Flam. Those four cover the overwhelming majority of what you will actually play. Add the five, six and nine stroke rolls once those are even, then the flam family, and leave the ratamacues until you have a marching or drum-corps reason to need them.

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A metronome is not optional here. Set it to a tempo where you can play the pattern correctly, hold it for thirty seconds, and only then move up five BPM. If the pattern breaks down at 100 BPM but works at 95, you are practising the 95, not the 100.

What not to do with rudiments

Practising rudiments fast and sloppy is worse than not practising them at all, because you are training the sloppiness into your muscle memory. Aim for the tempo where you can play the pattern correctly while relaxed, hold it for thirty seconds, then move up five BPM. A clean 90 BPM is worth more than a ragged 140.

Also resist the temptation to keep your hands on the snare forever. The point of a rudiment is that it survives the trip around the kit. Once a pattern is even on one surface, move the accents to the toms and the unaccented notes to the snare, and check that it still holds together at the same tempo. If it falls apart the moment it touches a second drum, you have learned a sticking rather than a rudiment.

::: verdict

Pick one rudiment this week — the single paradiddle is the best default — and spend ten minutes a day on it at a metronome tempo you can play cleanly for thirty seconds, raising the click by five BPM only when the full thirty seconds stays even, rather than trying to sample all forty at once.

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