As with all things knowledge of its background and history are important to understanding a things worth. By looking at the development of rudiments and their reasons we can get a better view of why they are so essential to the drummer.

The history of Rudiments has its start in Military History. For many years military's used trumpeters to send signals to soldiers who were out of vocal range. This caused problems because it took a skilled trumpeter quite some time to learn all the patterns for each signal. The other problem was the person playing the trumpet was usually a sitting target and was often shot. The last major problem is once the trumpet itself was shot it was useless. The Military needed another method of sending messages but nothing else was available.

Enter the Swiss military. The Swiss were the first military to have a Fife and Drum Corps as a regulated part of their organization. In Dr. Fritz Berger’s book entitled Das Basler Trommeln (published in 1928 and now out of print) shows a picture, dated 1525, of a fife and drum on a building. The oldest recorded Fife and drum combination. In 1386 the Swiss army became the first military institution to use drums to convey signals to troop at the Battle of Sempach. The Swiss drummers saw a need to standardize their playing so they would all play the same patterns at the same time in unison.

This desire to standardize their drumming lead to the invention of what we now call rudiments. With out modern notation rudiments were memorized or given a sound equivalent such as tra-da-dum, tra-da-dum, tra-da-dum dum dum. These early rudiments do not survive how ever the idea behind them does. We currently have a system of rudiments which for all intensive purposes were invented by Charles Stewart Ashworth in his book A New, Useful and Complete System of Drum-Beating published in 1812. In 1862 a book called Bruce & Emmett written by George Bruce and Daniel Emmett hit the scene also contained rudiments for drummers. George Bruce was the principle drummer instructor for the US Navy at Governors Island and listed 26 rudiments in his book. The last book that was written was Strube Drum and Fife Instructor which was published in 1869 for the national guard of the New England States. The problem with these books is that they all differed on what the rudiments were, causing confusion. This was all changed by John Philip Sousa who was the director of the United States Marine Band in the late 19th century. His book A Book of Instruction for the Field-Trumpet and Drum listed a set of rudiments and was used by all drummers in the American Armed Services. Sousa’s book also became highly distributed among the civilian population and was the first step in standardizing rudiments.

How ever the rudiments we currently use are thanks to the formation of the National Association of Rudimental Drummers (NARD), in 1933. NARD was an organization formed by 13 American Legion members who sought to organize the current state of drumming. NARD set out to review the rudiments dating back as far as the Swiss army and standardize the list of rudiments. NARD compiled the current texts containing drum rudiments and formed what became known as “The Thirteen Essential Rudiments.” These along with a second set of 13 rudiments were labeled the “Standard 26 American Drum Rudiments.” NARD promoted the use and study of rudiments, requiring all members to pass a test of playing the “Essential” 13 rudiments in front of a judge for membership. NARD disbanded in 1978.

But NARD was not the only organization to reform the world of rudimental drumming. The Percussive Arts Society (PAS) would later take its own shot at reinventing the world of Rudiments. PAS was formed in 1961 by a number of professional drummers and drum instructors who felt there needed to be a national organization for percussion education. In 1985 PAS took their hand to the rudiment pool and swirled things up. PAS reduced the 13”essential” rudiments of NARD and made them 7 basic rudiments. PAS also added 14 rudiments to the 26 to make what we now know as the 40 PAS International Drum Rudiments. PAS also reorganized the rudiments into their basic categories; Single Stroke Rolls, Multi Bounce Rolls, Double Bounce Rolls, Diddle Rudiments, Flam Rudiments, and Drag Rudiments. Yet PAS did not emphasize the study of rudiments like NARD did, and the importance of rudiments began to fade.

This is really good. I understood that rudiments dated back a while and originated in the military, but 1300's? And from the Swiss? I really did not know that at all.

Another great informational post by BismarkUMD.

Really cool post, lot's of interesting info in there. Thanks for posting this.

Usually with pedagogy we cite things... Perhaps your a Dr. of percussion studies but if not, maybe you could give us a source?

I actually have a degree in history. But generally I don't cite my research on web forums. As with all things posted on the internet nothing can be taken as fact until you yourself go and verify everything you read. I could give you a list of 40 books and journal articles but how would you know which were real and which were fake? Will you check them all?

J Hartsough, D Logozzo - PERCUSSIVE NOTES, 1994 - tarrani.com

“A Study of the Rudiments Used in Foreign Military Drumming Styles”, by John K. Galm, Percussionist - Vol. 2, Nos. 1 & 2, February 1965 (Corrections appear in Percussionist May 1967)
reproduced here <http://propercussion.org/filer/lilletrommenotation.pdf>)

“The Perfectionists, The History of Rudimental Snare Drumming From Military Code to Field Competition”
by Ken Mazur, Percussive Notes, April 2005
WANAMAKER, HAY & CARSO, ROB - INTERNATIONAL DRUM RUDIMENTS. Alfred Publishing (May 4, 2006)

“Timeline of Marching and Field Percussion” by Jeff Hartsough and Derrick Logozzo, Percussive Notes;
Part 1 August 1994, Part II October 1994, Part III December 1994, Part IV February 1995

www.pas.org

“PAS International Drum Rudiment Proposal” Edited by Jay Wanamaker and assisted by the PAS Marching
Percussion Committee, Percussive Notes October 1982

Blades, James "Percussion instruments and their history" Bold Strummer, 1992

There are just a few of the sources I've used. happy?

that was extremely interesting to read. thanks for posting.

Soo thats where rudiments originated from thats pretty interesting. Thanks for posting