August 2019

For many years now there has been tension in the drumming community over just how many standard educational rudiments there ought to be. The Percussive Arts Society (PAS) says 40 but the National Association of Rudimental Drummers (NARD) says only 26. The 14 extra rudiments in the PAS list have been contentious ever since their publication in 1984, with many drummers lashing out against them or just ignoring them entirely for the past 35 years. I have heard debates over the need for more than 26, just weeks ago in 2019, between older and younger members of the percussion community. Some American rudimental purists, such as Jack Pratt’s International Association of Traditional Drummers (IATD), have denounced the additional PAS 14 for their perceived Swiss influence and departure from “traditional” drumming. The IATD rhetoric is surprisingly nationalist toward American rudiments for an organization with “International” in the name. It is hard to argue with a titan like Pratt, but I’m going to make an attempt to undermine two prevailing falsehoods about at least 5 of the 14 PAS additions — One being that they are predominantly Swiss and therefore definitely not American, and the other being that they are not “traditional” to American ancient fife and drum and therefore a departure from the true nature of the art form. The other 9 are a little bit harder to rationalize as being “traditional” for ancient military drumming, but even some of those make a lot of sense.

History:

First, a bit of history is necessary. The NARD 26 rudiments of 1933 are precisely Gardiner Strube’s 25 Lessons from his 1870 Drum and Fife Instructor, albeit in a different order, with the lone addition of the Single Stroke Roll. Strube is not the originator of the Lesson 25 rudiment as a pattern, but his lack of any actual name for the rudiment in his 25th lesson spot is, ironically, how we name the rudiment today. Prior to Strube, American rudimental manuals had featured anywhere from 8 to 40 rudiments. Some had been as simple as Ashworth’s Not So Quick while others were fairly elaborate, like Hart’s Open Double and Single Flam Drag Beat. Strube’s list was of a moderate length (slightly over halfway between 8 and 40) and of middling complexity; presenting mostly rudiments that were well accepted and present in previous manuals. The exception is the Drag Paradiddle #2, which he lists for the first time in American history, at least as far as I can tell (if it had been listed before it was at least fairly obscure).

Strube’s manual was published just a few years after the end of the Civil War and may have been seen by the creators of the NARD 26, who were, and are, very well respected figures in drumming history, as a good representation of the average of many Civil War era publications. Sanford Moeller said in his book that he believed the Civil War to be the high point of ancient drumming in America and it seems as though NARD agreed. For this piece, I have looked at 5 distinctly different military manuals published between 1861 and 1864 for context. Keach, Burditt, and Cassidy prescribed rudiments sparingly in 1861, using just 18 in their book. Contrastingly, H. C. Hart recommended 40 the very next year in 1862’s New and Improved Instructor for the Drum. Elias Howe took the shotgun approach in 1861’s United States Regulation Drum and Fife Instructor by prescribing 21 of his own rudiment selections, then quoting the 22 from Alvan Robinson’s 1818 book Martial Musick, and further reprinting Kinehanse’s 1853 list of 30 from The Manual of Instruction for Drummers. Though it sounds like there were 73 rudiments in total, many of them actually overlapped. On a side note, Kinehanse’s rudiments are obviously only a slight variation on Ashworth’s 1812 rudiments and Howe calls them the “old English style” and further the “old style used in 1812,” which sounds like a subtle nod to Ashworth’s clear inspiration for Klinehanse’s list. Other publications during the war included Bruce and Emmitt’s Drummers’ and Fifers’ Guide, and Nevins’s Army Regulations for Fife, Drum, and Bugle, which mirrored Ashworth’s and Klinehanse’s rudiments reasonably closely.

In comparison to the crazy naming conventions of Hart, the scattered collections of Howe, the antiquated Nevins, the minimalism of Keach et al. and the perceived unreliability of Bruce and Emmitt (by some, Bruce may have been a deserter who greatly inflated his resume after changing his name), Strube’s book looks very uniform, authoritative, and concise. Given the benefit of hindsight and the lack of a raging Civil War, it ought to have looked that way, and a case can be made that NARD made a reasonable choice in selecting Strube as the prototypical rudimental guide. Reasonable, yes, but not perfect by any means. Strube discards many older rudiments that had been standard, traditional American fare. Some of those exercises in the discard pile come back to the fold with the 1984 PAS list.

My Premise:

The PAS 40 rudiments were compiled around 1981 and published in 1984. They retain all 26 NARD selections while adding 14 additional rudiments deemed worthy of study. The 14 additions can be split into 2 large categories – those that were present in American military rudimental drumming before 1870, and those that were invented or popularized later. There happen to be 5 and 9 in each category respectively and those that existed in the ancient American idiom before Strube must be considered at least as “traditional” as the 25 Lessons. The question of Swiss influence is then a matter of relative degrees. Many of the rudiments used in America in the 18^th and 19^th centuries were of foreign origin.

I propose that any rudiment that has existed in American military publications for more than 150 years is sufficiently removed from its origins to be considered endemic. I believe that some of the most often cited “Swiss” or “foreign” rudiments of the PAS 40 fit nicely into this endemic definition.

Pre-1870:

The pre-1870 PAS additional rudiments include: Single Stroke 4, Single Stroke 7, 6 Stroke Roll, Pataflafla, and Inverted Flam Tap. The last 2 are the most commonly cited as being “too foreign” for American drummers, but perhaps only because of the names that the PAS committee used for them. The Pataflafla has a very French sounding name, and may be the best candidate in this section for a “foreign” addition, however Robinson, publishing from Massachusetts, also lists a Flam A Two And One Flam in his 1818 book. Clearly, that descriptive title (and the accompanying sticking description) matches up precisely with the concept of the modern Pataflafla. The Swiss Tap Flam is typically blamed as the foreign inspiration for the Inverted Flam Tap, but American author Charles Stewart Ashworth published the Flam and Stroke, with the same sticking, in A New Useful and Complete System of Drum Beating in 1812 and it was a common American rudiment until at least 1943. To round out the other rudiments on this list: the Single Stroke 4 is just a non-appoggiatura version of the 4 Stroke Ruff, appearing as far back as 1797 in America, the Single Stroke 7 comes up in Hart’s 1862 book, though called the Triple Compound Drag Beat at the time, and the 6 Stroke roll dates back to at least 1817 with Rumrille and Holton’s Drummer’s Instructor or Martial Musician.

Post-1870:

The post-1870 PAS additional rudiments are: Multiple Bounce Roll, Triple Stroke Roll, 17 Stroke Roll, Triple Paradiddle, Single Paradiddle-Diddle, Single Flammed Mill, Swiss Army Triplet, Flam Drag, and Single Dragadiddle. These can further be split into groups – the logical extensions, the hybrids, and the other. The logical extensions are Triple Paradiddle (from 1937), Single Paradiddle-Diddle (from 1967), 17 Stroke Roll (explicitly mentioned in 1935, but certainly existed longer), and Triple Stroke Roll (from at least 1959). These simply take a concept from the 26 and push it slightly farther, or remove a flam in the case of the Paradiddle-Diddle. The hybrid group contains the Flam Drag and the Dragadiddle. These are clearly just combinations of other rudiments. In the other category are the Flammed Mill (known also as a Windmill Stroke), the Multiple Bounce Roll (a staple of orchestral playing), and the Swiss Army Triplet. To Pratt’s credit, the Flammed Mill (Schleppmühle) and the Swiss Army Triplet (Ordonnanz Triole) are definitely and unashamedly Swiss. These 9 rudiments can easily be considered “not traditional” in the narrow view of the IATD, in that they were created or popularized in America after the NARD 26 was codified, or in the case of the Multiple Bounce Roll, not typically used in purely rudimental playing.

Conclusions:

It should now be clear that our late esteemed colleague Pratt could only actually have had a rational grievance of definite foreign influence for 2 rudiments: the Swiss Army Triplet and the Single Flammed Mill. It should be noted that the Pataflafla is used in France and Switzerland and the sticking wasn’t common in the USA between 1818 and the 1960s. I could throw Pratt a bone and say 3 rudiments here.

The fact that the PAS 40 added 14 rudiments to a system that had been in place for 51 years, which in turn was based off a set of rudiments from 63 years before that, sounds like a sacrilegious upheaval of 114 years of tradition. On the other hand, I think most of the criticism is unwarranted. Let us not forget that Strube pulled the Drag Paradiddle #2 from the British repertoire in 1869 and Bruce and possibly also H.C. Hart should probably be credited with the idea for the Flamacue in 1862. Neither of these had American precedent before the Civil War and very well could be seen as less “traditional” than many of the others that had existed in America since the 1770s, in Britain since the 1500s, and in continental Europe since the 1300s.

Even the most nationalistic of American rudimental purists should give at least the PAS 31 a chance (NARD 26 plus the 5 with American historical roots older than Strube.) Accusations of Swiss influence and lack of precedence in the ancient canon are clearly unfounded for these 5 particular patterns. Without these thin claims, there is really no reason to discount them as useful and helpful tools in the drummer’s toolbox. As for the other 9, I am not married to the exact choices of the PAS committee, however an argument can be made for almost all of them to be used by modern drummers and percussionists as a learning tool. It is hard to dispute the ubiquitous nature of the Multiple Bounce Roll in school concert bands as well as professional orchestras and, recently, in marching bands as well. Personally, I could see the Triple Paradiddle being replaced with the older sticking pattern of the Treble Paradiddle (RLLRRLRR), but I think most drummers would disagree that this would be significantly more appropriate for the standard list. Similarly, the Inverted Flam Tap could be renamed the Flam and Feint or Flam and Stroke for the purists, but this has no real-world advantage.

Perhaps there is a pedagogically perfect set of rudiments, which teaches the necessary basic strokes of drumming most effectively while also introducing rhythms and idioms commonly found in literature. I don’t think that any known collection of rudiments from any time period can claim that level of perfection yet. Most drummers can agree that rudiments are a useful tool and that they have a historical record of success in drumming education. Rather than squabbling over which rudiment is more traditional or more American, or what list is closest to perfect, it is certainly a better approach all rudiments and rudimental systems with an open mind. I have never known anyone to have studied rudiments too well, too long, or too hard. 26, 40, or 900, any number ought to be considered valuable to the student and the master alike.

In short, the biggest sticklers and pedants about traditional rudimental drumming should have a hard time discounting 31 of the 40, however, the concept of “traditionally American rudiments” is silly and an unnecessary and counterproductive argument in terms of modern drum set or marching band playing. All rudiments are useful, including the suspicious 9 at the end of the 40, and more than half of the rudiments are ultimately derived from a European system at some level. Anything you practice systematically should make you a better drummer, while squabbling over the number and derivation of practice patterns will not.