What is the point of flam exercises? Most flam exercises i see (excuse me for being naive) have just basic flam accent, flam tap and hand on hand patifla's with tap drags as a permutation. Is the point of these exercises to get the line together playing it or is it to actually work on those rudiments? Is there some alterior motive? Are these exercises just to get people in the line used to different flam stickings in different contexts? I'm sure there is a perfectly legitimate reason i just cant seem to figure it out.

All of those reasons are legitimate reasons

The way I have heard it explained, the flam is one of the 4 basic rudimental sounds. I think that is why it is covered.

All exercises are designed to strengthen the individual's playing ability, as well as, when played in context with an entire percussion ensemble, strengthen the group's ability to listen and play all of the different rhythmic variations that may be encountered cleanly.

does this mean that when i write a flam exercise i should cram as many different flam rudiments and voicing into a single exercise or is it overkill?

Musicians play exercises that underline what they will play. If your show / performance(s) have the craziest notes then the answer to your question would be yes. If not, write according to the demand of the show.

I say this because it would be nonsense to even play flam exercises (within a drumline) if you don't even have a single flam in the show.

So when the senior who writes warm ups for a line with no instructor graduates, and those kids have a show the next year chock full o' flammy goodness, and nobody practiced their flams for a whole year (impossible, in my opinion) nor do they have warm ups to practice flams, how well do you think they'll do?


It is always good to practice every single rudiment, regardless of whether it shows up in a halftime/winter show or not. It's just a general preparedness thing.

There are some pretty successful high school programs that never play a single flam. In fact I know of a WGI Independent Open line that never played a flam in their show (and won). Flams aren't really that necessary, but they sure are fun.

POW!

So basically all the different flam exercises is about working on different flam types while also grooving.. They make more and more because they each have a different groove to them. If there was just one simple flam exercise that covered all the types of flam hybrids and simple flam rudiments there might as well just be one type of rock song.