A uniquely American rudiment, the flamacue comes into invention in the mid-19th century.
Performed:
The Flamacue in American Music:
The first recorded use of the Flamacue is as the “Flamamacue” in Bruce & Emmett (1862). This rudiment appears again in Strube (1869) as the “Flamacue” and from there becomes a standard of American rudiments.
Notice the Flam followed by the quick 3 notes in the fifth “measure”.
Interpreting that movement as a Flamacue would make this line (minus the first flam) identical to the beginning of Army 2/4.
One could make the argument that we see the Flamacue in Ashworth’s Quick Step. This depends on how you understand his three quarter notes tied together with a ‘3’. Some interpret it as a 16th note triplet, making the phrase a sort of flam-based ratamacue. Some interpret it as simply being fast notes, therefore the phrase is a Flamacue without the iconic accent. I agree with the latter interpretation, because the structure of Ashworth’s Quick Step bears so many similarities to the later Army 2/4, a standard 2/4 quickstep for the US Army.
The evolution of the Flamacue appears to come from the original performance of the Flamadiddle, in which the first two strokes were accented rather than just the first as is customary today. While 18th century drum manuals and most early-19th century drum beatings perform two flamadiddles back-to-back, we see in Rumrille (1817) a shift towards more complex quicksteps that have one right-handed Flamadiddle. Rumrille’s Roving Sailor, for example, bears many structural similarities as the later flamacue-based ‘Army 2/4’ in B&E and Strube.
Notice the opening of Line A and Line B are very similar to Army 2/4, if the flamadiddles were flamacues.
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