The drum rudiments on The Rudi-Pad go back a long way.
They are timeless and will always be an important part of drumming.

    The snare drum, being an instrument of indefinite pitch, has no scale patterns.  Through the years the drum rudiments evolved principally to develop technique and uniformity of execution.  A rudiment, as defined by Webster, is "a first principle of any art or science."

    Who started drum rudiments?  The Swiss claim the invention of drum rudiments as gathered from a book of instruction for fife and drum by Dr. Fritz Berger entitled "Das Basler Trommeln".  This book (published in 1928 and now out of print) shows a picture of a fife and drum on a building dated 1525.

    Also, historians in this field generally credit the Swiss nation as having the first fife and drum corps using drum rudiments.  The first objective of course was to establish uniformity of the drummers using an equal number of drummers to fifers in their corps.  The drummers had to play in unison.  All of this was about 400 years ago.  Music notation as we know it today was not known at that time.  Drummers played by roll sound and memory.  For example, the long roll was known as the da-da-ma-ma and started with the left hand to train the weaker hand right from the beginning.

    Drum notation in Switzerland started around 1620.  The French took notice of this and formed drum corps around 1660, some with fife and some with clarion (bugle). The notation began to become modified due to the faster step of the French in comparison with the slow Swiss marching cadence.  The next migration of the rudiments was to Scotland.  The English soon followed, adopting rudiments to their particular styles.  In transfer from one country to another there were slight changes and possibly even omissions.

     The rudiments came to America when ......... our Eastern states were British Colonies, about the 16th or 17th century, with English regiments.  During the American Revolution in the 1700's, of course the American corps, principally fife and drum, followed the English.  Unfortunately there is no record of what music or notation was used.  The first book of instruction in America for fife and drum, listing drum rudiments, was by Charles Stewart Ashworth dated January 16, 1812.  This book was intended particularly for the use of the United States Army and Navy listing 26 drum rudiments and very similar to present day.
    
         Other books published:

Bruce & Emmett  by George Bruce and Daniel Emmett - 1862, receiving wide distribution for the next 40 years.

Strube Drum and Fife Instructor - 1869, published for and by the order of the National Guard of the New England States.

Trumpet and Drum  by John Philip Sousa - 1886, written for the introduction of drum and bugle corps.  This book also became the guide of all service drummers in all branches and had a wide civic distribution because it contained all of the drum rudiments.

    In the first 20 years of the 20th century great changes and much progress in drumming came about.  There appeared dance bands, trap drums, foot pedals, rag time, improvising and many drum methods to train and help the trap drummer.  Then came the nickelodeon (silent pictures) with trap drummers.  The Washington Marine Band, conducted by John Philip Sousa, the great composer of military marches, sustained the rudiments more than any other during this time.

    At the close of WWI (1919), the American Legion organized and held drum and bugle corps contests on a national scale.  Between the 3 books listed above, there was a lack of uniformity of playing the rudiments, causing much confusion and complaints.  This resulted in the forming of the N.A.R.D. (National Association of Rudimental Drummers).

The Ludwig Drum Co. then rounded up a group of prominent drum instructors from all parts to talk it over and come up with a practical system all could live with while not deviating from any of the then recognized and established methods.  That meeting took place on June 20, 1932.  They divided the 26 drum rudiments into two sections.  Each applicant had to play the Essential 13 Standard American Drum Rudiments as a test for membership into the NARD.  It was assumed that the student who studies the first 13 essential rudiments and realizing their value would of their own accord continue to study the remaining 13 rudiments.

    America can justly boast that we have the best drummers of any country in the dance field, concert, drum corps and schools.