The Single and Double Drag are similar rudiments largely associated with the Reveille.
They appear to have an old origin based on their fairly universal use throughout historic drum music.
Single Drags:
Double Drags:
The Single and Double Drags in French Music:
The Single and Double Drags are two of only a handful of modern French rudiments that weren’t located within Philidor. However, based on these rudiments’ link to the Reveille, this was not a surprising absence.
Most European drumming systems refer to the Single and Double Drag as the Reveille strokes.
The French system calls the Single Drag a Coup de la Rigodon and the Double Drag a Coup de la Diane. Both names refer to the rudiments’ use in the Reveille beatings.
For the Double Drag, La Diane refers to the French Reveille. In the “Batteries et Sonneries de l’Infanterie Française” (1831), we see La Diane performed as a Double Drag beating.
For the Single Drag, the Rigodon was the name for the 2/4 beating that accompanied La Diane in the “Ordonnance des Tambours et Fifres de la Garde Imperiale” (1804).
See Georges Kastner, Manuel Général de Musique Militaire a l’Usage des Armées Françaises (Paris: Imprimeurs de l’Institut de France, 1848) 19-24.
The Single and Double Drags in Swiss / Basel Music:
The Basel system refers to all types of Drags – Single Drags, Double Drags, and similar drag rhythms – as the “Reveille Strokes”. The fancy reveilles employ these various drag rhythms (Berger, 25).
In the Swiss 1728 ordonnance, the three “Tagwacht” (reveille) beatings contain Double Drags. This is still true of the two “Tagwacht” in the 1759 ordonnance and the three listed in 1788 ordonnance.
In the ordonnance of 1889, the Swiss refer to the Double Drag as “coups doubles de 3.” They appear in the Tagwacht or la Diane. The 1889 and 1845 ordonnance are the same as the 1831 beating. While the 1819 and 1829 ordonnances are difficult to read, they appear to also be the same.
The Single and Double Drags in Dutch Music:
In the Dutch system, they have an Appelslag (Dawn stroke, referring to the Dutch reveille beating). This rudiment is similar to the Double Drag, performed as Right, Lt-Drag, Right, Rt-Flam (Galm, 14).
In the Dutch ordonnance, the “Appel slag” appears to refer only to a drag, and not a double drag style movement. However, the Reveille beating does have a sort of double drag movement. The drummer plays a Right, Drag, Right, Right (Rausher 3, 21).
Structurally, there are some similarities in this beating with the double drag beating seen in the Swiss (1845; 1889) and French (1831) La Diane. The beating is largely identical to the older-style of performing “The Dutch” in the American Reveille sequence.
The Single and Double Drags in German Music:
The modern German system doesn’t name any rudiments as “reveille” strokes; it also doesn’t appear to outright have double drags or single drags.
Some German reveilles – the Hessian and Austrian – might be Single and Double Drag beatings. This is based on the American Reveille sequence.
In “Batteries et Sonneries de l’Infanterie Autrichienne” (1846), the Austrian Tagwache appears to be a very simple Single Drag beating (Kastner 46).
The Prussian Reveille, however, appears to have roots in Double Drag-style beatings. The earliest version of a Prussian Reveille I could find was in George Winter, Kurze-Unweisung das Trommel-Spielen. This reveille depicts the same rhythm as a Double Drag beating, but without the drags, quite similar to the 1831 French “La Diane”.
Later, Kastner lists a similar reveille, except this one has an altered rhythm that is closer to the Dutch reveille. See “Batteries et Sonneries Allemandes: Signaux pour les Tambours, Fifres, et Clairons de l’infanterie Prussienne (1846)” (Kastner 41). The same version remains in the German study, in Krüger, Pauken- und kleine Trommel-Schule, 171.
The Single and Double Drags in British / American Music:
Only the American and English system don’t consider Single and Double Drags to be “reveille strokes”. In fact, the English reveille and Scottish reveille do not utilize Single or Double Drags.
Single and Double Drags as Marches
Unlike most other styles, the Americans and British appear to use Single and Double Drag beatings frequently as marching beatings.
There is a wealth of Double Drag beatings to accompany tunes in 18th century drum manuscripts, especially in Ben Clark.
Every early 19th century drum manual lists at least a standard Single Drag and standard Double Drag to perform along to tunes, and many have a few variations. Many fife tutors and fife tune books label tunes as “Double Drag” or “Single Drag”.
Note, these two beatings represent simple stock beatings.
The frequent use of these beatings was so remarkable, that the Single and Double Drag beat were described in Rees’s Cyclopædia:
There is a kind of accompaniment performed on the drum, when beating to marches, and to other airs played by a fife. This is called the Drag, and is either double or single, according as the music may admit. The Single Drag is little more than a tap of the drum for each note in the air; the taps being given in exact time with the divisions of the music. This is what we commonly beat as an accompaniment to quick steps, “Rule Britannia,” &c. The Double Drag is a much fuller accompaniment, in which, for the most part, two or three taps are given for every note in each bar; or, eventually, the whole is performed in a kind of articulate roll, not to be easily described, in which the accented parts are reinforced with much strength.
Rees, Cyclopædia, (entry: Drum).
What I find most interesting in Rees is his comment that a Single Drag beating is the most appropriate for a stately march like “Rule Britannia”, which is in stark contrast to a modern American sensibility which tends to pair such marches with a more Sousa-like beating with duple-based 9-stroke rolls and crisp, straight paradiddles.
English use of Drags Beatings in the Reveille
While the British and American style don’t refer to Single and Double Drags as reveille strokes and utilize the beatings quite freely for marches, there is still some degree of overlap between the Single and Double Drags with reveille.
By the early-19th century, the Americans have a recorded reveille sequence that includes Single Drag beatings, Double Drag beatings, and a Dutch-style reveille beating.
Rees’ explanation of the Single Drag seems to be a “Single Drag slow”, as noted in Percival’s Drum Certificate, in reference to the Reveille. Percival also notes a “Single Drag quick”.
There is some evidence that this American Reveille sequence actually has British origins.
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If you’d like to work on developing this rudiment, check out my Double Drag Practice Guide.