Pataflafla! Flamacue! Paradiddle-diddle!

Believe it or not, these are real words. One time someone had us play a pattern called a paradiddle and I was like, a para what'll? What the fiddly-widdly is a paradiddly? Well, it's easy really. It's simply a pattern that is played RLRR and then LRLL. Try playing it on your desk. Now play it faster. It works two sides of your brain and makes you crazy. CRAZY! And a paradiddle-diddle is RLRRLL and then LRLLRR. And a pataflafla? Well, pataflafla's are just evil. All these things are the names of drumming patterns that people made up to make you a better player. They're called the rudiments and there are something like 40 of them that every drummer should know. Personally I think a bunch of expert drummers got together and wanted to play a practical joke on their witless students, so they gave patterns that probably had perfectly respectful names, new names. Pattern so-and-so became a paradiddle. And joker drumming expert number 2 wanted to see another witless student play a paradiddle-diddle. And so on and so on until they came up with pataflafla. They must have been roaring with laughter. I mean, the first 15 rudiments are rolls, and their names are perfectly normal: 5 stroke roll, and 7 stroke roll and 19 stroke roll. It's all downhill from there. Drummers must have a sense of humor because sometimes it's hard to hold a taiko class without someone turning a simple comment into a potty joke--or worse. So I guess I follow the great long line of witless drumming students and I'm still working on playing my pataflafla without messing up.