How Flams, Drags and Buzz Rolls Are Notated
Ornaments are the messiest corner of drum notation. A flam, a drag and a buzz roll all mean "two or more strokes crowded together", and publishers draw that idea in several competing ways. Read the legend, then read the sound.
The short answer
A flam is one grace note played just before the main stroke. It is drawn as a single small note immediately before the main note, with a slash through its stem.
A drag is two grace notes before the main stroke, sometimes drawn as two small notes or as one small note with two slashes.
A buzz roll or ruff is a crushed, unmeasured cluster of strokes, usually drawn as a small note with a z or three slashes on the stem, or as a note with a squiggle.
All three mean "extra strokes, tightly packed". Read the legend to know which drawing your particular chart uses.
The family of ornaments
It helps to think of them as points on one scale: how many extra strokes, and how tightly packed.
| Ornament | Extra strokes | How it sounds |
|---|---|---|
| Flam | One | A single grace note, slightly before |
| Drag / ruff | Two | Two quick grace notes before the main |
| Buzz roll | Many, unmeasured | A crushed, continuous buzz |
| Multiple bounce | Many, measured | A controlled roll, even strokes |
Once you see them this way, the notation stops feeling arbitrary. Each symbol is a picture of "how many strokes, how close together", and the drawings differ mainly in how explicitly they say it.
Drawing a flam
The standard flam is a small note with a slash through its stem, placed immediately before the main note. The small note is the grace stroke — played by the other hand — and the main note is the beat.
Three conventions worth knowing:
- The slash on the stem marks the note as a grace note rather than a full-value note.
- The small note sometimes sits on the same line as the main note, sometimes slightly before it in time.
- Some publishers draw the grace note as an ordinary small notehead with no slash, relying on size alone.
When you see a small note leaning against a bigger one on the snare line, it is a flam until proven otherwise.
Drawing a drag
A drag is the same idea with two grace notes, and the notation varies more. You will meet it as:
- Two small notes with slashes, before the main stroke.
- One small note with two slashes on the stem, standing in for both grace strokes.
- Two small notes slurred to the main note.
The drag is the one people misread as a flam, and the difference is audible: a flam played as a drag lands slightly early because the extra grace note takes time that the main stroke does not have to spare.
Drawing a buzz roll
A buzz roll cannot be written as a specific number of strokes, because it is not measured. There are many strokes, and the exact number depends on the drum, the sticks and the room.
Because of that, publishers use an approximate symbol: a small note with a z on the stem, or with three slashes, or a note with a wavy line through it. All of them mean "crush a lot of strokes here and hold it for the written value".
Where a roll needs to be even — a concert snare roll, or a rudimental solo — the notation switches to measured strokes with clear counting, because an unmeasured buzz would be wrong. The symbol follows the intent.
::: callout
The counterintuitive part: the ornament symbol tells you what to play but almost never how loud to play it. A flam in a rock chart is usually an accent with the grace note ghosted; a flam in an orchestral part may want both strokes equal. The same symbol spans a wide range of dynamics, and only the context and the legend clarify which is meant.
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Why publishers disagree
There is no standards body for popular drum notation. The five-line staff is an international convention for pitch, but drum ornaments grew out of rudimental tradition, orchestral practice and individual publishers, each with its own house style.
Add the fact that anyone can write a drum chart and publish it, and the result is a family of symbols where the core meaning is shared but the exact drawing is not. That is not carelessness — it is the absence of a body with the authority to decide.
The practical defence is the same as everywhere else in notation: check the legend. A chart that defines its ornaments is a chart you can trust. One that does not is a chart you have to reverse-engineer from the recording.
Telling them apart on the page
At speed, in a dense chart, the three ornaments can blur. A few signals help.
Count the small notes. One grace note is a flam, two is a drag. This is the most reliable signal, when the drawing shows it.
Look at the stem. One slash for a flam, two for a drag, three or a z for a buzz. If the publisher uses slashes consistently, this is definitive.
Check the note value. A buzz typically occupies a longer written value, because it has to fill a duration. A flam is an instant event with no duration of its own.
Use the music. If the passage is a rudimental solo, expect precise drawn ornaments. If it is a pop chorus, expect the ornaments to be simplified, and treat any cluster symbol as "a flam here will do".
Practising them
The reason to read these symbols accurately is that they are easy to play approximately and hard to play exactly. A flam whose grace note is too early becomes two separate hits; too late and it disappears into the main stroke.
Practise the ornaments slowly and separately from any chart. Play a flam on the snare at a slow tempo and listen for the two strokes remaining distinguishable. Then speed up until they fuse into one sound — that is the target, and it takes a few weeks of short sessions.
When you move to the pad, practice pad exercises has rudiment drills that include flams and drags, and the symbol reference in drum notation symbols covers the rest of the ornament set.
::: verdict
Play one flam, one drag and one buzz roll in a row, slowly, and listen for the difference in the number of strokes. If you cannot hear three distinct ornaments, no chart will fix it — the reading is only useful once the sound is clear in your head.
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Frequently asked questions
The questions readers send us most about drum notation for flam.
A flam has one grace note before the main stroke, a drag has two. Sound-wise the flam is a single quick flick and the drag is a slightly longer pair of grace strokes, which gives it a heavier, more rolled character. In notation, a flam shows one small note, a drag shows two.
Usually as a small note with a z on the stem, or with three slashes, or with a wavy line through it, meaning crush many unmeasured strokes for that note's duration. Because buzz rolls are unmeasured, notation can only approximate them, and publishers differ most in this symbol.
Because no organisation sets a standard for popular drum notation. Ornament symbols grew out of rudimental, orchestral and publishing traditions separately, and anyone can write and share a chart. That is why every professional chart begins with a legend defining its ornaments.
One beat. The grace note is played just before the beat rather than on a subdivision of it, so a flam occupies a single written position in the bar. That is exactly why playing the grace note too early is a common error — it makes a one-beat event sound like two.
Play the two strokes separately at a very slow tempo and close the gap gradually, rather than trying to play the flam at speed and hoping it settles. The usual cause is the grace note being played at the same volume as the main stroke: lead with a much quieter grace note and an accented main note, and let the timing follow the dynamic.