The ictus is the Moment of Music, the vertical dimension, the instant of the beat, the flick of a conductor’s hand. The flam is an ictus split into two. Drag over the noteheads to hear a flam of snare drum rimshots. In Percussionese, the flam is pronounced “Plah!”. Now try it at home: Exectue a [...]

Little Richard speaks percussionese – the proto-language of drums. Check out his impression of a drum fill in Tutti Frutti for your MP3 player. Drag over the black stemmed noteheads… Drag over that final “boom” a few more times. Listen to how Little releases that note. He is very great. The people of Percussionesia speak [...]