A whisper of a flam, then the second note shouts.
The Rudiment
The flamacue is a five-note figure bracketed by flams, but its defining trait is misdirection: the flam opens the phrase quietly, and the accent lands not on that flam but on the very next note. So you get a soft flammed downbeat, a sudden loud second stroke, two more light strokes, and a closing flam. The ear is pulled off the beat and onto the “and,” which gives the flamacue its distinctive lurch.
That displaced accent is the whole personality of the rudiment. It is a flam exercise, but really it is an exercise in placing weight where the listener doesn’t expect it.
Sticking
The standard PAS sticking is lR L R rL for the first pass and rL R L lR for the second, alternating. The flam sits on the first note and again on the last (which becomes the launch of the next repetition), while the accent falls on the second note — the first plain single after the opening flam. Counted in sixteenths, the opening flam is on the beat and the accent lands on the “e.”
How to Play
Keep the opening flam soft and controlled; if it’s too loud it steals the accent’s thunder. Then drive the second stroke hard — that’s the “cue.” The two middle strokes settle back to a low, even level, and the closing flam prepares the opposite hand. The difficulty is dynamic discipline: a quiet flam, an explosive accent, and even taps between, all inside one quick figure.
In Practice
The flamacue is a classic rudimental solo and audition piece, prized precisely because its off-beat accent exposes any sloppiness in dynamic control. It appears throughout traditional snare literature and makes a striking, syncopated accent when translated to the drum set.