It has long been a goal of mine to get tenor drummers speaking the same language. Those of you who are not tenor drummers may not be aware, but prior to now, there has not been a universal method for writing flourish tenor music. In fact, many flourishes have been called different names by different tenor drumming teachers for years. I’ve always thought developing a list of universal flourish symbols would be a daunting task. Those of us who teach have over the years developed our own systems of terms and symbols to represent flourishes. Getting all of us to come to an agreement on terms and symbols would require compromise on everyone’s part. I am excited to announce that this goal has been achieved!
The tenor & bass drumming adjudicators at the November 2007 EUSPBA Judges’ Seminar spent the day developing this list of EUSPBA recommended flourish terms and symbols. This is not intended to be a finite list; we realize that there are many more possible flourishes and that new flourishes are always being invented. We included the most commonly used flourishes in the Eastern United States. Feel free to email me (musicsec@euspba.org) if you have any questions or if I can be of any help.
Recommended Flourish Symbols (PDF)