A paradiddle with its flam shifted off the front.
The Rudiment
The single flammed mill is a close cousin of the flam paradiddle, and the difference is where the flam sits. Rather than flamming the very first stroke, the flammed mill takes a paradiddle-shaped figure and places the flam on the second note, so the accent and thickening arrive a beat later than the ear expects. The “mill” is the paradiddle-style hand pattern; “single flammed” tells you one flam is folded into it, displaced from the downbeat.
That displacement is what earns it a separate name — it produces a rolling, slightly syncopated feel distinct from the squarer flam paradiddle.
Sticking
The single flammed mill is conventionally written as a paradiddle figure with a flam on the second stroke: R rL R R for the first pass and L lR L L for the second, alternating. The lowercase stick is the grace note attached to that second, flammed stroke; the surrounding strokes follow the paradiddle’s single-single-double shape. Because sources vary on notation and accent placement, treat the flow — plain lead stroke, flammed second stroke, then the double — as the reliable description rather than any one printed count.
How to Play
Lead with a clean, unflammed first stroke, then drop the flam on the second note with the usual low grace and accented primary, and finish with the relaxed double. The coordination challenge is holding back the flam for one stroke while keeping the whole cell even; the hand that plays the grace note must be ready an instant after the lead stroke, not before it.
In Practice
The single flammed mill lives mainly in the rudimental and marching tradition, where its displaced flam adds variety to passages that would otherwise lean on ordinary flam paradiddles. It is a useful independence study — training the hands to insert a flam anywhere in a pattern, not just at the front.