Does any one have any Scotty Rudiments that they could send me? Perhaps even a copy of the therefore mentioned packet? "Taking no Short Cuts"?

Yeah, I picked up that packet. It's one of those "So easy, it's hard" type of things. A lot of things are very hard at the mentioned tempos.

I've been playing for many years, but I just started playing in a pipe band. From what I understand, dead drags are a drag interpretation where the grace notes are played as a 'dead' stick (stick pressed directly into head -- very short buzz). To me, it sounds like a flam where the grace note is very tightly buzzed.

As for 'tap rolls', I believe you are referring to roll notation that has an accent over it. These are the typical Scottish buzz rolls that simply begin with a tap/accent.

Check this web site out... www.drumming.tk Click on scores and you can down load many of old and new scores from many popular and legendary pipe band drummers all in adobe format. All for practice..As far as dead sticks go..The best way too get the sound right is too almost over grip your stick on what ever stroke the dead falls on...no buzzes no silent rolls it is dead...wether traditional grip is used or or matched grip.. just grip the stick with an extra finger aside of the fulcrum and tip stick the head...imagine sitting behind a drum kit and kicking the bass pedal and letting it rebound...you will get a nice full thud...then hit the kick and press through the sound with the pedal not releasing your foot...you will get more of a dead sound...rolls...most rolls for 4/4 massed bands and other 4/4 and 3/4 tunes are either 7's and 13's. hope it helps...Matt

drumming.tk is a great website, and if you dig around for a while, you can find classic stuff in a computerized and accurate score. A lot of the the links are to copied handwritten transcriptions which are not the most accurate at times.