Notihng seems to help I'm trying to learn how to play clean good flam accents, but they keep sounding dirty and slow. I'm tried the trip-la-triple thing with the accent and three taps and thats not helping. Anyone have any idea on how to make them better or tips or exercises.

And what are some good dvds for learning marching percussion rudiments

I'm not sure about the DVDs but I can try to help you with your practice routine.

The flam accent is a rudiment that is pretty hard to get used to, but it welcomes you to a whole new level of drumming. You need to play them slow for a long time slowly, trying not to speed them up. For me, there was actually a breakthrough point where I was like "Oh snap, I got flam accents!". I was actually playing with my hands on my lap during an assembly about gangs and drugs.

Before attempting to learn flam accents, learn the flam, of course, with good technique. Also make sure you are completely comfortable with 16th note accent patterns, specifically RlrLrlRlrLrlRlrL (capital letters being the accents). If you have down flams and accent patterns, learning flam accents is just a matter of muscle memory.

I agree, flam accents are tuff. Mostly because of the coordination in your hands.....at least for me. Like Cuban said, I did them slow to start off with but with work an patience, it will become nothing to you.

It's all about playing them over and over until you build up that muscle memory.
The flam accent builder is a great exercise to work that stuff out.

It's the exercise that you mentioned with extra notes added in.

Here's the sticking.

R rrr R rrr (l)R rrr (l)R rrr (l)R r(r)Lr (l)R r(r)Lr

The use the same rhythm throughout. 1 . 3 1 3 . 1 . 3 1 2 .

geefunk got that right. BD uses that excercise. I think it works better after you have the basic muscle memorization down though.

Once you have isolated the hand motions, break down your heights to ensure clean and visually impressive flams also.

Play at a slow tempo, slow enough that you can be sure each grace note is 1 inch, each tap is 3 inches, and each accent is 12 inches (or insert the respective heights your line might use)
Realistically, you won't be able to maintain these exact heights at a faster tempo, but my old instructor taught me this process is good for building and cleaning flam based rudiments

This works for me: just keep in mind that you want to aim for the accent itself. Let the flam come naturally. If you try aiming for the flam everytime, your bound to mess up.

One thing that really helped me learn good flams was using the stroke system. Raise the accent hand to 12" and keep the grace note hand at tasset. Do quarter note flams really slow and stress the point of both hands leaving at the same time. If the do leave at the same time w/ the same velocity, u'll have nice sounding flams.

Also, make sure you aren't just dropping in either of the hands. Both should be very controlled and stroked out ESPECIALLY at slow tempos.

there is no one way to learn them. but the important thing is to keep your interpretation of you taps and accents the same from eights. also play it supper slow for a very long time. concentrating on heights, sound, and technique. it takes a lot of work and you just don't get something overnight. this takes time but if you don't take the time now then your just going to hurt yourself later. oh yeah and remember play with a friend, a mirror, and a met. peace.

well you guys sound like ya'll know what ya'll are talking about so I have a question for ya'll. Say for the flam accent builder, is the second stroke lower than the first stroke on the bounces? Or in technical terms, do ya'll play the grace note lower than the tap and then go back up for the tap? I know that sounds weird, but it's kind of hard to do at high speeds. Just imagine french roll with accent on the first and third note of every bounce. I think I've heard that when you play flam accent slow, play the grace note lower, but when you play it fast, the grace note should be like any other tap. If this is true, how do you determine when the grace note should be played as a tap?

Hands down the hardest rudiment I ever had to learn to do. Inverts were nothing compared to these. Break it down and take it slow and build it up. Many times when we have trouble learning rudiments, it's because of a brain short-circuit or bad connection. To get over this we must tear down that bad bridge and start again and work to rebuild.

Remember to think about not what you are currently doing, but what your hands and muscles will have to do to play the rudiment.

I remember I tried for 4 months to play these damn things. I gave up and then three months later picked up the sticks to try again and vwooooom. Flam Accent Fighter Pilot. Sometimes they just click.

i learnd them slow then took them faster as i got them cleaner

Hmmm. I am somewhat surprised that people are citing flam accents as one of the hardest rudiments. For me, flam accents came really naturally with simple repetition. It's other rudiments I have a much harder time with! I guess it depends on the individual. It is one of the easiest rudiments for me. I consider any sort of invert a lot harder. So, I'd just keep practicing them over and over! Open/closed/open, and at constant tempos (w/ metronome) that you continually push higher when you can consistantly play a certain amount of them well at the given tempo.

EDIT:

Quote:

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When playing isolated flams, there should be virtually no upstroke to a grace note. But at when playing flam accents, the grace note of the flam is actually the middle of three taps. It's really impractical for the height of a grace note to be any different from the tap that precedes or follows it.

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If I may, I'd like to clarify what this person was saying... the grace note of the flam is the middle of a group of three notes ON THE SAME HAND. There is the main note of the flam on the other hand in the middle of those 3 notes on the original hand, and that IS a different height than the grace note. I try to keep the grace notes at about 1", and the main notes of the flams at whatever height the dynamics designate, usually accented.
Also, while I generally accent the main notes of the flams, I keep the other two notes low, and this helps prepare one hand for the subsequent grace note.

Do it how every rudiment should be played. Especially when you are learning it. Play it really really slow and bump up the tempo a few clicks every 5-10 minutes.

Cleaning up the rudiment is harder than learning it in my opinion. Getting that grace note to be a grace note and not a tap is a pain, Jeff Queen spent hours a day for weeks playing them painfully slowly just to get down the dynamics of it. Flam freaking Accents...what a rudiment. At least everything is easier after that.

Flam accents are no different from any other rudiment. You approach each the same. Break down what each hand plays. Perfect that. Slowly piece them together. Perfect that. Do everything WAY slower than you think you need to. Don't move up the met until it's perfect.