Last month we used flams to create contrast within common time signatures. Flams are some of my favorite rudiments to apply to the drumset—you can create incredibly expressive phrases when you vary the width between a flam’s grace note and primary stroke, from tight and precise to open and loose. You can also vary your dynamics and experiment with the rudiment’s orchestration around the kit. In this lesson we’ll experiment with the flam’s width, condensing its spacing down to a unison note, or flat flam, and using the new rudimental pattern to create syncopated, blast beat–style drumset applications.
