Welcome to Vic Firth's Drum Rudiment page! Included in this section of the website are all 40 of The Percussive Arts Society's Essential Snare Drum Rudiments, along with videos of each rudiment being performed by Dr. John Wooton, audio play-along files, exercises that apply the rudiment to "real world" musical phrases and practice suggestions from the Vic Firth Education Team. To get started, grab your sticks and a practice pad and select a rudiment from one of the rudimental families below!

Important!
Each of the rudiment pages below include "embedded" Quicktime audio and video clips. In order to view these pages, you must have the Quicktime player and plugin installed on your computer (download it free at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download) AND you must use Internet Explorer version 4.0 or higher.

Single Stroke Rudiments

Roll Rudiments Flam Rudiments

Single Stroke Roll
Single Stroke Four
Single Stroke Seven

Multiple Bounce Roll
Triple Stroke Roll
Double Stroke Roll
Five Stroke Roll
Six Stroke Roll
Seven Stroke Roll
Nine Stroke Roll
Thirteen Stroke Roll
Fifteen Stroke Roll
Seventeen Stroke Roll

Flam
Flam Accent
Flam Tap
Flamacue
Flam Paradiddle
Single Flammed Mill
Flam Paradiddle-diddle
Pataflafla
Swiss Army Triplet
Inverted Flam Tap
Flam Drag

Paradiddle Rudiments

Drag Rudiments

Single Paradiddle
Double Paradiddle
Triple Paradiddle
Paradiddle-diddle

Ruff
Single Drag Tap
Double Drag Tap
Lesson 25
Single Dragadiddle
Drag Paradiddle #1
Drag Paradiddle #2
Single Ratamacue
Double Ratamacue
Triple Ratamacue


Improve Your Chops with Mark Wessels'
Rudimental Technique Video Lessons!

Having good technique is important, whether you're a percussionist in a school band or a 50 year old gigging drumset player. To play music, your hands should be able to do anything your mind asks of them – and rudimental technique is one great way of making sure that can happen.

In these exercises, excerpted from A Fresh Approach to the Snare Drum, Mark Wessels isolates and breaks down essential rudimental techniques.

Click here and begin improving your technique today



Rudiment Practice Tips

If you're learning the rudiments, be sure to read our practice suggestions, submitted by percussion instructors from around the country! If you're a percussion instructor yourself, leave us a tip or practice suggestion on how YOU teach the rudiments!

Click HERE to go to the Practice Tip page>>


Dennis DeLucia's "Rudiment Learning Sequence"

Dennis DeLucia, Vic Firth Artist and Education Team Member devised the "Logical Learning Sequence" to give directors, instructors and students an approach to learning the rudiments that takes into account difficulty, inclusion of rudiments from each "rudimental family" and the popular usage. The 10 rudiments in Quadrant A form the basis for all of the other rudiments. Beginning students (or "first-timers" to the rudiments) should begin there and eventually progress through the other quadrants after they have achieved a medium level of proficiency ("silver or gold level").

NEW! The entire Learning Sequence is now available in PDF format!

Each PDF includes the rudiment, rudiment application and progress chart so that you can print it out and take it with you or pass out to your students! The Acrobat Reader plugin is required.

Quadrant A

Quadrant B
  1. Single Stroke Roll
  2. Single Stroke Four
  3. Single Paradiddle
  4. Multiple Bounce Roll
  5. Double Paradiddle
  6. Flam
  7. Flam Tap
  8. Ruff (Drag)
  9. Five Stroke Roll
10. Open (Double Stroke) Roll

Download the PDF handbook of Quadrant A

11. Single Stroke Seven
12. Paradiddle-diddle
13. Flam Accent
14. Swiss Army Triplet
15. Flamacue
16. Nine Stroke Roll
1
7. Thirteen Stroke Roll
18. Seventeen Stroke Roll
19. Lesson 25
20. Single Dragadiddle

Download the PDF handbook of Quadrant B

Quadrant C

Quadrant D

21. Triple Paradiddle
22. Six Stroke Roll
23. Seven Stroke Roll
24. Fifteen Stroke Roll
25. Flam Paradiddle
26. Single Flammed Mill
27. Pataflafla
28. Single Drag Tap
29. Double Drag Tap
30.
Single Ratamacue

Download the PDF handbook of Quadrant C

31. Triple Stroke Roll
32. Ten Stroke Roll (coming soon)
33. Eleven Stroke Roll (coming soon)
34. Iverted Flam Tap
35. Flam Drag
36. Flam Paradiddle-diddle

37. Drag Paradiddle #1
38. Drag Paradiddle #2
39. Double Ratamacue
40. Triple Ratamacue

Download the PDF handbook of Quadrant D