Drum Rudiments: Why Use Them?
Rudiments are one of the most fundamental characteristics of drumming. A percussionist should know all of the key drum rudiments and be able to perform them without hesitation. If a drummer doesn’t know the basic rudiments, their skill and coordination will not be up to a level good enough to compete with rest of the drumming community.
Where Did They Come From?
There have been many different groups of people trying to put together different lists of the most essential rudiments. There is one list that seems to be the most popular, the 40 International Drum Rudiments. The National Association of Rudimental Drummers (NARD) established the original 13 most essential drum rudiments, later they added 13 more to make the total 26. Later on the Percussive Arts Society (PAS) took this list of 26 rudiments and added another 14 to complete the list of “40 International Drum Rudiments”. This list can be broken down into six different sections: Single Stroke Roll Rudiments, Double Stroke Roll Rudiments, Diddle Rudiments, Flam Rudiments, Drag Rudiments, and Multiple Bounce Rudiments.
How Do I Use Them?
Rudiments are essential drumming blueprints for constructing beats, fills, and solos. They are relatively simple patterns, but if used correctly, and with creative combinations you can construct some mind blowing beats and fills that will catch your listeners attention. Practicing your rudiments is a lot like anything else in life, if you don’t practice them, you wont be good at them. Some people will have a natural skill for practicing their rudiments, but ultimately the best drummers will be the ones who work hard at them day after day.
Where Do I Start?
The Single Stroke Roll, and Double Stroke Roll are great places to start. These are the two rudiments that all the other rudiments are based off of. If you learn these then it will give you a solid footing for learning the rest of your drum rudiments and patterns.
Many drummers start playing rudiments even before they purchase a drum kit. When I get approached by a new drummer asking what kind of kit to get, I tell him to instead start with a practice pad and a pair of medium weight drumsticks. I tell my students this because if they don’t have a kit, with shiny cymbals, and loud drums, they are less likely to get distracted. This is the same reason that even advanced drummers will go back to the practice pad when they are learning new techniques or rudiments. The practice pad just offers fewer distractions.
Making rudiments a key part of your practice is critical to your drumming success, make sure you put somewhere between 25-50% of your practice time into developing and cleaning up your rudiment technique on a practice pad. It is important to spend this much time working on new techniques.
Explore posts in the same categories: Drum Rudiments