Talk:Drag (percussion)

RE Questions about 24th and 48th Notes

In 4/4 time, the following note values apply:

• 4 notes per measure: quarter notes
• 8 notes per measure: eighth notes
• 12 notes per measure: twelth notes (aka eighth note triplets)
• 24 notes per measure: twenty-fourth notes (aka sixteenth note triplets)
• 32 notes per measure: thirty-second notes (twice as fast as sixteenths)
• 48 notes per measure: fourty-eighth notes (twice as fast as twenty-fourths)
• 4,312 notes per measure: 4,312th notes (admittedly not common, but equally as valid as the others)

Brad Halls 05:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Ruff

I've always refered to drags as ruffs, are they the same thing?Nathan Wonnacott 23:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ruffs vs. Drags

I'm not sure that there is a universally accepted answer to this question, but I'll take a shot. My issue with ruffs has always been a) undefined height (i.e. both notes written as grace notes, which seems impractical to me for rebounded strokes) and b) undefined spacing (what is the spacing between the notes in a ruff anyway)? So, I never use the term "ruff" in my teaching.

Brad Halls 03:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

What I've always heard, and what I've always been taught, is that a drag has two grace notes, and a ruff has three. In other words, as you increase the number of grace notes from one, you have flam, drag, ruff, five-stroke rolls, six-stroke rolls, etc. Evan Seeds (talk) 06:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

See, I don't agree with the most recent addition to the article, about the difference between drags and ruffs. My definition is still the one above. While the PAS does not define a ruff, its definition of a drag, as seen here (no. 31) is certainly grace notes. Vic firth, on the other hand, defines the drag and the ruff to be the same thing, BUT STILL GRACE NOTES. Also, the only source I found that differentiated the two, says drags are grace notes a la (llR or rrL) and ruffs (or fours stroke rolls) are grace notes a la (rlrL or lrlR). Given this, not only do I disagree with the way the article differentiates drags and ruffs, but I don't agree with the definition of the drag AT ALL. It isn't similar to a diddle, except in the fact that the grace notes in the drag are indeed diddled. --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 21:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. As I mention in the article text, "There is some debate amoung percussionists about the difference between drags and ruffs". It seems that is the case! :-) In the same PAS rudiment page that you reference, #30 (flam drags) and #35 (single dragadiddles) are clearly written as 32nd notes. In fact, the dragadiddle example shows the drags as accented, so those cannot be grace notes. What can you conclude from all of this? Probably nothing definitive. I think the best you can say is that the subject is open for debate. Brad Halls (talk) 18:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite, notation.

I rewrote this page almost completely. Please make or suggest any changes you feel are necessary. Also, the more I think about it, the more I think diddle (which i also rewrote) should be merged into this article. Also, I started a discussion on sticking notation here, which any editors of this page may be interested in. --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 08:30, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

With all due respect, if you have specific issues with any points in the article, let's discuss them one at a time and try to improve the article collaboratively. My suggestion (since you asked) would be not to completely throw out the context of an article that has been under development for some time and replace it with your personal world-view in a single edit. I really do enjoy the discussion/debate on these and I really *don't* want to start a flame/edit war. So again, my recommendation would be to improve the articles collaboratively and incrementally. Thanks. Brad Halls (talk) 17:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing content was my last intention, as the content on the page is pretty much spot on, although I do think we need to make a distinction between the two types of drags. Also, the prose is pretty bad, if you ask me, and I don't think the article indeeds all the excess italicizing and bolding. The emphasis should come from just the text itself. I'll move my two rewrites (for diddle and drag) to Talk:(article)/Proposed rewrite. Let us work on them there, shall we? --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 18:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Update: here they are: Talk:Drag (percussion)/proposed rewrite and Talk:Diddle/proposed rewrite --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 18:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

No problem removing italics and bolds. Would you mind commenting on specific objections to the prose? Brad Halls (talk) 06:29, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually "pretty bad" is a bit of an overstatement, but I don't like how the section on rolls is worded, and there seems to be a lot of jargon that only percussionists or maybe musicians in general would understand. --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 06:49, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, before we do anything else we need to resolve the difference between diddles and drags. When you say context, you mean, if the drummer is playing eight notes (r l r l) then double one of them like: (r l r r) that's a diddle. Whereas, if he's playing eighth notes (r l r l) then does this: (r l rrl) that's a drag? If so, what if the drummer is not playing steady notes? such as (r l r rlr l r rrl) which would be counted (1 2 3 4&1 2 3 4&1). Is that a diddle or a drag? --Evan Seeds (talk)(contrib.) 07:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Here is the quote from the "diddle" article. I thought this stated the difference pretty clearly (?), but if not I'm open for suggestions on how to improve it.

In percussion, a diddle is a pattern consisting of two consecutive notes played by the same hand (either RR or LL). This is similar to the drag, except that by convention diddles are played the same speed as the context in which they are placed, where drags are played at twice the speed as the context in which they are placed. For example, in a sixteenth note passage any diddles would by definition be sixteenth notes. In the same passage, any thirty-second note note diddles would be considered drags.

Not sure I understand the question properly, but I'll take a shot. In your example, I would say the "context" is quarter notes (?), which would make the the first "RR" a diddle (quarter notes), and the last "RR" a drag (eighth notes). If the context is not clear, then the answer cannot be clear, either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brad Halls (talk • contribs) 20:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Rudiment rewrite

There's a discussion open about moving a full rewrite of Rudiment, combining all smaller rudiments, into mainspace and redirecting all the smaller article to rudiment going on now at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Percussion#Rudiment_rewrite --Evan ¤ Seeds 04:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)