The flam tap glues a flam onto the front of a double stroke. Each two-note group is flam-R + R or flam-L + L: a flam (lead-hand grace + main stroke) followed by one more stroke from the same hand. The "tap" is that second stroke — not a full-volume hit, but a controlled rebound off the flam's main note.
Alternated, it becomes flamR-R · flamL-L: each hand plays its flam-and-tap, then hands over to the other side. This is the rudiment's most common form, used everywhere in marching writing and modern fusion fills.
The trap: the tap collapses into a weak afterthought. The flam's main note is loud; the next stroke (same hand) needs to speak as a real, unaccented stroke — not whisper-quiet, not a bounce. Practice the underlying "flam plus controlled second stroke" before chaining them at speed.
Reading the Notation
The flam appears as a slashed grace note before the accented main note. The tap that follows is the same hand's next 8th — a normal, unaccented stroke. Lowercase l/r means the grace; uppercase R/L means a full stroke; the > over a note marks the flam-as-accent.
Exercises
Right lead only: flamR-R · flamR-R · flamR-R · flamR-R, four pairs per bar. The accented R's are the flams (grace L + main R); the unaccented R's are the taps. Slow tempo. Listen for 'fl-AM · tap · fl-AM · tap', alternating loud and soft — same hand, two distinct volumes. If the tap matches the flam's volume you're missing the dynamic; if the tap disappears you're crushing it. After this is solid, do the same exercise lead-reversed (L lead) before moving on.
Now the flam alternates: flamR-R · flamL-L · flamR-R · flamL-L. Each accented note is a flam; each unaccented note (same hand) is the tap. Lead hand alternates each pair — same alternation as the basic flam, but with a tap between. The hand that just played a tap is also the grace for the next flam (it ends low, ready). Look at the score: the slashed grace is always the opposite hand of the upcoming pair.
Same alternation as Exercise 2 but with the tempo bumped to ♩=75 and looped across two bars. The point is endurance: at this tempo, the flams and the taps both have to stay clean for at least the duration of the repeat. If a tap fades on the way through bar 2 — common — drop back to ♩=70 until both bars match, then try ♩=75 again.
Same alternation, twice the density: two flam taps per beat. Accents (flams) on every other 16th — counts 1, &, 2, &, 3, &, 4, & — so the flams land squarely on the 8th-note grid. Tempo stays slow on the metronome; under your hands the rudiment is moving. This is the lesson endpoint — looping this for one minute at ♩=60 with both flams identical and both taps clean is the graduation bar.