Flam

Grip & Sticking

Also called grace note.

One quiet grace note tucked just before a full primary stroke, played by the opposite hand: a soft low stroke, then a solid one. Done right it sounds like a single fat note, not two. The gap between grace note and primary is a tone control — tight for marches and funk, a touch wider for ballads and big heavy backbeats.

Flams are the difference between a metronomic backbeat and one with personality. A flammed snare on beats two and four adds weight without added effort; flams leading into crashes and rimshots soften the attack while keeping the volume; and the whole flam family of rudiments — flam tap, flam accent, flam paradiddle — is this one gesture stretched into patterns.

Hold the grace-note stick about an inch off the head and the primary at normal height. Metronome at 60 bpm, one flam per click, alternating which hand leads. If you hear two obvious notes instead of one big one, the gap is too wide; if the grace note is loud, you are lifting it. Get the primary ringing cleanly alone first, then slide the grace note in behind it.