Questions about the flam in Section 3

Finger Drumming Lessons / Courses / Practice
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I am a little bit confused about the flam introduced in section 3. Which hand should hit the pad first? In the video from lesson 1, the flam seems to be performed first by left hand and then right hand. But in the bonus section, the right hand goes first, which I find a little bit counterintuitive for a right handed.

Furthermore, I am also confused how to make the hi hat on beat, which leads to the question that which hand of the flam is on beat. Does the flam makes the snare a little hasty or a little lagged, or it just stays in the middle (which makes no sense for the hi hat)… Just a little confused about it!

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Hey! I think with the flam it can be a little personal which hand feels right to come first. I might have accidentally played it sometimes with the left hand going first but I usually hit the right hand first and the left hand second by lifting the left hand up more.

I think technically the exact placement of the flam should be in the middle of the two hits. I think the hi hat when placed together with the snare will not sound “off” in the context of a flam. You just get that nice dirty sound. That said, I also quite often make my flam a delayed sort of flam where I hit the main hit exactly on time and then the flam hit comes after that. In that case there will be no problem with the hi hat placement and the dirtyness will just be different dertyness :slight_smile:

So to summarize:

  • You’re not doing anything wrong it seems
  • Every flam variation you can think off can be “correct” in the right circumstances.
  • As long as you manage to get some space between the two hits to make it sound “dirty” you’re on the right track!

Feel free to ask more if this isn’t clear enough. I can also talk about it in one of the livesdtreams.

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Oh and one more thing: If you really want a consistent hi hat plus a flam on the snare, there is a technique where you use one hand on the hi hat and then with the other hand you use two fingers to create a flam. So that’s a way to solve the hi hat problem 100% if needed. I can show this in the livestream if you want.

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Thanks a lot! I guess it may be more “human” is the hi hat just flows with the flam. I’ll give it a try.

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