Flam Definition

A flam is a grace note (a small 1 to 3 inch light stroke) just prior to the primary note. The sound of a flam should imitate it's name ("f"-"lam").

Practice both left and right flams and work up to the following exercise.

Movie ♪♫

Flam Demo 1
165 KB wmv

Note The above movie demonstrates a marching style flam. Remember, with an orchestral style your starting and ending stick head position is roughly 7 inches above the drum head. With a marching style you try to hit through the head, with an orchestral style, you bounce the head off the drum.

Tight and Loose Flams

With a tight flam the grace note is closer to the primary note than with a loose flam. In general, tight flams are performed when playing in a marching style and looser flams are played when playing an orchestral style. Also, the faster the your playing, the tighter the flams.

Flat Flams

A flat flam is where the grace note and primary note are played with the same or nearly the same intensity and nearly at the same time. A flat flam is really simultaneous hits. This is useful when playing flams with each stick on a different drum.

Applying Flams to the Drum Set

• Click Here for ideas on how to apply flams to the drum set.