The Paradiddle in Depth and Related Rudiments.
By Jim | August 15, 2008
The Paradiddle in Depth and Related Rudiments.
By: Jim McCarthy
Check bottom of post to see video hosted on youtube.
Here is some pretty complete info about the single paradiddle, from beginner level to very advanced. The principles outlined here can in fact be applied to just about any rudiment - in fact drumming in general - but I’ve chosen the paradiddle as it is probably the best known rudiment past singles and doubles. Even non-drummers have often heard of a paradiddle!
Now I’m not going to spend hours writing down the whole content of the video blog here, as it would take too long, and be quite a long read as well. Really the best thing for you to do is to just watch the video a couple of times. As a bonus - I’ve taken a few excerpts from the book “Stick Technique” which are relevant to the single paradiddle and presented them here for you. If you really want to go into maximum depth with your paradiddle rudiments - and others - the best thing is to check out the whole book which you can do at http://www.sticktechnique.com.
Here it is:
(Movement by Movement)
The idea of this two-page section, is to explain the kind of thinking we should do every time we learn a rudiment - or any combination of notes that we are having difficulty with or would like to improve. To perfect a combination of notes, we need to look very simply at each note separately to decide what stroke type it is in it’s most exaggerated form. It will be either a “Full-stroke”, “Tap”, “Down-stroke” or “Up-stroke”. The calculation is based simply on whether the note is loud or soft, and on whether the next note that same hand has to play is loud or soft. When we can execute each note slowly by itself in the correct order, then we are playing the rudiment in the most efficient possible way, and as we begin to work on speeding it up there should be no wasted movement taking up extra time!
Some Simple Rudiments at Much Higher Speeds!
This section looks at what happens when we start using some of our basic motions much faster. As we
combine the fundamental movements to create patterns of notes (or “rudiments” if you like!), the perfect versions of the movements actually need to be compromised to varying degrees. Each note effects the one next to it a little bit.
The basic principle here is that, at much faster tempos, it is not so much that there is no time for excess stick movements (although there certainly isn’t!), but that there is no time for excess muscle movements! The answer to this problem lies in both the type and timing of the muscular actions we DO use. Essentially we aim to get more than one note from each action. Going through the following example rudiments will give you a start at thinking along these lines - remember though, that this is really only applicable as we reach our maximum physical potential.
In the end analysis, performance of this rudiment comes down to relaxing the grip and joints and as much as possible letting the sticks do what they want to do anyway. All of the active muscle movement will end up being arm movement, with the wrists and fingers just controlling the
rebound in a passive fashion.
Try this experiment:
Hold the stick loosely at it’s balance point between two fingers, and have no other part of your hand touching the stick. Let the stick fall to the drum head from about 20cm and allow it to bounce twice. (hitting three times all together) Listen carefully to the rhythm produced in these three notes. It should be fairly close to this:
The first note will be the loudest, and bounce the highest. All successive bounces will be softer and lower - getting faster as they lose height.
Compare this to one hand of the paradiddle.
The rhythm is so close, that at high speeds, if we just think of placing the accents, the other notes should automatically occur providing we are relaxed, and have practiced the rudiment sufficiently at slow speeds.
This may sound obvious and easy, but the reality is, that most of us will find it quite difficult to perform the double stroke 100% from natural rebound. This is partially because we get used to thinking of the first note as a “down stroke” where we actually try to kill the rebound. The other main obstacle is one of co-ordination. We need to be able to co-ordinate the passive controlling of the rebound from the original accent (which obtains the double stroke), with the simultaneous large upwards movement of the other arm performing the second note of the rudiment.
This information is based on ideas taken from the book “Stick Technique”. Find out more at www.sticktechnique.com.
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Getting a Variety of Sounds from a Drum and Controlling them Well
By Jim | July 16, 2008
Getting a Variety of Sounds from a Drum and Controlling them Well.
By: Jim McCarthy
Getting a Variety of Sounds from a Drum and Controlling them Well: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadCheck bottom of post to see video hosted on youtube
There is an enormous variety of sounds that you can get from a single drum so let’s go through a few, and also discuss some of the ins and outs of using these sounds. We will focus on the snare drum as it is the most common to all types of drumming.
Well first of all there is the fundamental sound change on a snare drum between snares on and snares off. All the other sounds discussed here can have a snares on version and a snares off version.
There are two really easy and obvious ways to change the sound we get from a drum. One: Change what we hit it with. There are a whole variety of things produced these days to hit a drum with. Apart from a whole range of sticks and brushes, there are various mallets, “hot rods”, plastic flaps, nylon brushes, “flix” - the list goes on and on - then of course there’s always your bare hands. Method TWO: Change where you hit the drum. Let’s go through some specifics.
Oftentimes a composer will ask for us to play the drum “near the edge” or “in the center”. This certainly does achieve a significant sound difference. It also tends to produce a softer sound near the edge - or at least make it easier to play softer - so some drummers tend to play near the edge as a little “cheat” when they need to play softly. This can be quite ok - there is nothing wrong with this cheat really, but you do need to be aware that it will also effect the type of sound produced. In particular, playing near the edge of the drum means your sound will not be as crisp and articulate. Notes played near the edge will have more high harmonics and will ring a little longer with less snare “snap” and longer snare ring. If you really want to get clearly articulated rhythms on the snare at faster tempos then you need to play in the drum center and if the dynamic is very soft, then you just have to develop the hand control to make the strokes small enough. Where playing near the edge can be ok - in fact actually better for getting really soft sounds - is with un-measured rolls. In this case the lack of definition actually works to our advantage. When you play “near the edge” of the drum, it is easiest to use the edge furthest away from you. Using the near edge creates a bad hand position and requires a difficult stick angle to avoid clicking the rim. I’ve often seen drummers have their sticks out to the side - also not good! If both sticks are out to one side there will be an uneven sounds as one stick will be closer to the edge than the other. If the hands are out to either side there is still a high likelihood of unevenness as the tension is often not quite the same on either side. Go for the far edge, and aim to position the tips of the sticks directly between two adjacent lugs. If you have the stick on either side of a lug, then once again there can be a difference in tension producing an uneven sound.
Ok - what about some other places to hit the drum…
Some other commonly used sounds would be playing on the side or shell of the drum, or playing on the rims. In particular it’s quite common for snare drum solos to include sections where one hand plays on the rim whilst the other plays on the drum. Whilst there is no special technique for playing on the rim - you just hit it - it is always worth being extra careful with balancing the volume in these sections. The rim sound in inherently softer than the loud drum, so these sections work better if the rim notes are played out a little more strongly whilst the drum notes are taken a little more easy. Really listen carefully for the correct balance.
Drummers from all types of backgrounds will be familiar with the term “rimshot” but it seems there are some differing ideas about what a rimshot actually is, and there are a few similar yet different sounds which often get their labels mixed up. The “correct” rimshot is simply a stroke played in the normal fashion but with the stick held at an angle such that the tip hits the head at the exact same point that the shaft of the stick contacts the rim. The sound of the rimshot is always loud and aggressive but it can vary quite a bit depending on how far from the rim contact point the stick tip strikes the head. Using a flatter stick angle and big gap between shaft and tip contact points tends to result in a fat and chunky sound with more bass. Using a sharper stick angle and a small gap, results in a thinner and higher pitch sound with more upper harmonics and more ring.
Another common sound which is often mixed up with the rimshot is more properly called a “rimclick” or “cross-stick”. This sound is achieved by holding one end of the stick firmly on the head of the drum whilst the other end extends over the rim. The shaft of the stick is then pushed downward into the rim in a stroke action. Most drummer prefer to reverse the stick for this sound and hold the tip down on the head with the palm whilst the fingers grip on the shaft and the butt end extends over the rim. It doesn’t usually make a whole lot of difference in sound however. Well - it does make a difference in sound, but a bigger variation in sound is achieved in the same way as with the rimshot - by altering the distance between the rim and contact point on the head. I usually prefer to NOT reverse the stick as it makes switching into and out of the cross-stick technique faster and easier whilst playing.
A very similar type of sound to the cross-stick is called “stick-on-stick”, and although its sound is actually a little different, it is often used as a kind of quick cheat method of playing a cross-stick because it is easy to do one quickly when you are holding the stick in the normal fashion. Rather than changing the grip on the stick, we use the normal grip but hold the tip down on the head. The sound is achieved not by pushing the shaft of the stick into the rim, but by striking the shaft of the stick with the other stick. Once again there is an enormous variation possible in this sound. Variable factors include the position of the stick tip on the head, and striking point on the stick. Also this sound can be played with the tip of the stick touching the head only, OR with the shaft of the stick ALSO held on the rim in the cross-stick position. In this case the sound can be varied as before by changing the gap between the rim and the tip of the stick.
Some cool effects can also be achieved with the stick-on-stick sound by using some special techniques. If we hold the stick which is struck with the fulcrum of the grip only and control the butt end with the fingers in the normal “finger control” way, we can achieve an intermediate drum only note between each stick click. In fact you can even achieve a buzz sound with the fingers as one would do with the “multiple bounce” roll or “buzz” roll, and simply keep the stick energized with a fast series of clicks from the other stick. This is best understood by looking at the video connected to this post which I recommend you do.
These are some of the more common sounds available from a snare drum, but the limit is only in the imagination - I’m sure new ideas are being invented as I write.
This information is based on ideas taken from the book “Stick Technique”. Find out more at www.sticktechnique.com.
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The Science of Practicing a Musical Instrument - How long and How often.
By Jim | May 27, 2008
The Science of Practicing a Musical Instrument - How long and How often.
By: Jim McCarthy
The Science of Practicing a Musical Instrument - How long and How often.: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadCheck bottom of post to see video hosted on youtube
This blog entry is very valuable for ALL musicians - no matter what instrument you play, and no matter what level you are at. The two most common and most pertinent questions about practising are very simply “How often should I practise?” and “How long should my practise sessions be?” Opinions on these topics see to vary, but over the years most music teachers have come to realize that there are some predictable results from particular variations in these things. There are some “magic numbers” which can give you the best results from your practise. And believe it or not there is actually a little bit of science behind why these magic numbers are what they are. SO let’s address the second issue first…
How long should my practise sessions be?
The standard thinking has always been that the longer you practise the better. Well this is certainly true, but only to a point. The quality of the practice is more important. In order for your practice to be truly effective, you need to be practising the music exactly as it should be. If you get lazy and start playing the notes almost right, then that is what you are practising - almost right. You don’t want the end result to be almost correct, you want it to be 100% correct, so that is the way you must practise it. That may mean of course that you need to go through things more slowly than the final tempo in your practise. Ok - so given that the quality of your practice is so important, the length of your practise session becomes more important. The problem with long practise sessions is that your brain gets tired. Your concentration drops after a time, and you can get lazy and start playing things almost right. So while it’s true that “the more practise the better”, it would be better perhaps to say: “The more practise with 100% concentration the better!”
So how long can you practise with full concentration. Well this of course varies from person to person. In fact your concentration stamina is something you can exercise and build just like your physical stamina. If you wanted to increase your physical fitness, you wouldn’t go for a 50 mile run on your very first day - that would just damage you! You would go for a short run, and gradually build up the length of your runs over time as your fitness increased. Your mental stamina works the same way. You practise for a little while to start with until your concentration wanes, and gradually build up your mental stamina. At the height of my practise stamina, which was years ago working for my masters degree, I could get over 10 hours of useful practice out of a day. Not in one go - I could probably manage about 90 to 120 minutes on one thing then I would have to have a short break and continue with something quite different. Over the last 20 years I have taught hundreds of students, and this has taught me that young beginners may only be able to focus for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. This is a real issue for them as they cannot concentrate for the “magic number” of 20 minutes - so they really need to quickly build their mental stamina quickly to at least 20 minutes to get a worthwhile benefit from their session.
So the magic number for session length is 20 minutes - why?
Simply put - 20 minutes is how long it takes before the subconscious part of your brain starts taking notice. The conscious part - the part that you are thinking with right now - the part you are actually aware of, is actually only responsible for a small amount of your total brain activity. The subconscious is the much larger part that you are unaware of. This part never stops thinking 24/7, and is the part responsible for your dreams etc. It is also very powerful - unlike the conscious part, the subconscious is capable of working on many things at once. When you practise, you are focusing your conscious mind on a specific task, and over the length of the session it hopefully improves a little. When you stop practising though your conscious brain moves on to other things and the benefits stop. What you really want is to get your subconscious mind working on the practice as well. It’s not only a much bigger part of your brain, but it keeps working and thinking on a problem long after the conscious mind has moved on. How long? About 24 hours in fact. So how do you get the subconscious to start practising for you? Well you have to practise a specific thing for 20 minutes or more. It varies a bit from person to person, but essentially the magic number is 20 minutes. That is how long you need to consciously concentrate on something before the subconscious wakes up and says to itself - “hey this must be pretty important - I’ll start working on this too!” And then it does - for the next 24 hours!
SO what would you prefer - 19 minutes of practice using a small part of the brain - or 20 minutes PLUS 24 hours practising using the larger part of the brain?
20 minutes is the magic number - make sure you spend at least 20 minutes focusing on each specific thing you want to improve.
On to the other issue:
How often should I practise? - how many days of the week should I practise?
Obviously in an ideal world you would be practising every single day - maybe even two or three times a day! Well unfortunately most people - even professional musicians - simply can’t find that much time to practise. Let’s face it it’s a balancing act between the different things in our lives, and it’s also a matter of priorities. How often to practise is a decision every musician has to make for themselves, but if you understand exactly what the relationship between practice and progress is, then you are at least making an informed decision. I recommend for most of my students that they work towards doing a solid session at least FIVE TIMES A WEEK.
Let’s look at why…
What is the purpose of practise? To improve? What does that mean? I like to think of a line which represents our current abilities at one end, and where we want to be at the other end. In between can be divided up into a whole bunch of little steps - steps of progress if you like, towards your goal. It should look a little like this.:
BAD__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__|__GREAT!
Now for every day of the week you do a decent practice session you will progress towards GREAT. For every day you don’t practise, you actually tend to go a little bit backwards towards BAD. You won’t lose all your hard earned progress straight away of course, but over time things get rusty and you forget what you learned. You never forget it all!!!, but you do go steadily backwards. From 20 odd years of teaching experience I can tell you, a pretty accurate ratio for most people over one week, would be two to one. By that I mean that every practise session will gain you two steps of progress forwards, and every day you don’t practise will lose you one step.
If you do the math, you can quickly work out that practising once or even twice a week leaves you with essentially zero progress at the end of the week! Practising three times in a week is kind of a quantum leap, because you actually end up with two steps of progress at the end of the week which you get to keep! After that, for each extra day you practise you will improve that final number by THREE steps of progress - two more gained, and one not lost.
So:
1 session p/w = 0 steps of progress
2 session p/w = 0 steps of progress
3 session p/w = 2 steps of progress
4 session p/w = 5 steps of progress
5 session p/w = 8 steps of progress
6 session p/w = 11 steps of progress
7 session p/w = 14 steps of progress
Once we look at that table, it’s not hard to see that if you practise at all in a week, it’s worth practising a minimum of three times and preferably more. Mostly the average person finds it impossible to practise 7 days a week, but 5 days is quite manageable - especially if you consider that all we are asking for is a 20 minute session. 20 minutes is less time than it takes to watch one episode of “The Simpsons!”
NOW…
Let’s look at the difference between doing the minimum 3 sessions per week and the recommended 5 sessions per week. With the recommended 5 sessions per week we have reached a target of 8 progress steps in the first week. If you were doing the minimum amount of practise - 3 sessions per week - you would only get 2 progress steps each week, so it would take you FOUR WEEKS to reach the same target of 8 progress steps. Not only that, but in total you would be doing TWELVE practise sessions - more than double than in the 5 p/w scenario!
So if your target is 8 progress steps away… which of these would you prefer?
- 5 sessions over one week - or…
- 12 sessions over four weeks
Pretty amazing numbers when you look at it that way!
Or another way to look at it…
Let’s say you have just done your minimum 3 sessions for the week so far…
Now which of these options would you prefer to reach your goal…
- Stop for the week, have a rest - then do another three sessions the next week - then do another three sessions the next week - then do another three sessions the next week?
- Do two more sessions later that week.
Now you have the information, I bet you are keen to do that extra practise!
This information is based on ideas taken from the book “Stick Technique”. Find out more at www.sticktechnique.com.
YouTube version
Part 1
Part 2
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5 tips for building up the weaker hand - week 10
By Jim | May 23, 2008
5 DRUMMING TECHNIQUE TIPS-A10
5 tips for building up the weaker hand - week 10
By: Jim McCarthy
TIP 1 - TIP FOR TRADITIONAL GRIP USERS.
Users of traditional grip face a fairly basic and fundamental coordination challenge every single time they pick up a pair of drumsticks. It is this: Your two hands are essentially using completely different motions. The right hand is using an up/down bend of the wrist along with an up/down bend of the elbow. The left hand is using a twisting of the forearm along with an in/out swing of the elbow. After some thinking I’ve come up with a cool exercise for you to help coordinate these two different motions together. It’s kind of like a pat the head and rub the belly exercise but this one is actually useful from a musical point of view and something all drummers and percussionists might be required to do at some point anyway. You will need to find a tambourine - any sort will do for this exercise - and a shaker. You can always make a shaker out of some rice or little stones in an old tin can if you don’t have one.
The left hand will hold the tambourine and perform a sustained roll. The idea is to hold it in front of you with a bent elbow, so it is similar to a traditional snare drum grip playing position. You use a twisting motion of the arm to perform the roll. The right hand will hold the shaker up in front of your face with the fingers out and the thumb behind. If you have never learnt to play shakers or tambourines then I highly recommend going along to www.percussionsecrets.com to learn how. All drummers should have some basic training in hand percussion instruments and this represents a fantastic and easy way to learn. The www.percussionsecrets.com website is not live yet, but should go live in a week or two. The motion of the shaker is kind of like an upside down right hand snare drum grip. The motion is partly from the elbow and partly a back/forth bending of the wrist.
So the exercise then is to perform a sustained roll of the tambourine with the left hand whilst simultaneously performing a steady rhythmic shaking with the right hand. This is a pretty useful thing to do as a percussionist anyway, but it is also an alternative way to practise the essential muscle movements required to play with an unmatched grip.
TIP 2 - TIP NOT INVOLVING DRUMMING.
This week’s tip is a cool one for drum kit players. Snare drummers - don’t worry - you can do it as well with just a few cents investment buying a bolt and wingnut from the local hardware store. Drum kit players and most percussionists already have bolts and wingnuts built into the end of their cymbal stands! 
Drummers have you ever noticed how every single time you set up and break down your kit, the urge to use your strong hand to twiddle the wingnut is almost overpowering? Let’s start doing it the other way around. Use your weaker hand to twirl the wingnuts - and no cheating by using the ole’ “hit n’ spin” method we all love to speed up the process. No I want you to actually turn the wingnut by gripping and twisting the whole way. A little thing, but over time this will improve the abilities of your fingers and wrist on the weaker hand.
TIP 3 - TIP FOR EVENNESS AND MATCHING THE HANDS.
This week’s tip for improving evenness is simply a technical explanation that in my experience few drummers actually ever consider - even though it is one of the most important. It is for playing even double and triple strokes. Most drummers become aware at some point that you need to use some form of active finger control if you want to play doubles or triples fast and strongly. Some even realize the fact that you need to incorporate a movement from the elbow for each bounced group if you want to maximize speed and power. What many drummers never understand, is why their doubles and triples always seem to fade when they play very quickly or very strongly. Here’s some explanation.
At top speed, multiple strokes rely purely on rebound, and finger power around the fulcrum between thumb and finger. The volume of the initial stroke is not really limited because it can have all the motion of the forearm behind it. The forearm is only moving once for each multiple stroke, so in effect it only needs one quarter of the speed that the rebounded finger notes need. This means there is plenty of time to get some stroke height. SO - as I said - the initial stroke can be as loud as you like. Unfortunately the same thing is not true of the successive notes. The volume of the rebounded finger notes is quite limited. It is limited to the stroke height that can happen purely with rotation of the stick through the fulcrum - and in practise not even 100% of that, as faster speeds will not allow enough time for full rotation.
The problem most drummers have when they start using a combination of forearm movement and active finger control, is that they add the finger power to ALL of the notes. This always creates an uneven sound. The initial note has arm power AND finger power, but the second and/or third note/s has only finger power. Of course the initial note is always much louder and the double or triple strokes sound pulsed and uneven. The real challenge is to let the initial note of each group be powered ONLY from the arm. The rebounded energy should rotate the stick through the fulcrum a little, then the fingers should power the stick back around a little past the initial contact angle to create the second note. The initial note is powered from the arm and the other notes from the fingers. As long as the power of the initial arm motion does not exceed the potential power of the fingers, it is possible to create even doubles or triples.
TIP 4 - PLAYING MORE NOTES WITH THE WEAK HAND or LEADING WITH THE WEAK HAND
Here is a cool little groove to play with the hands on a drum kit. You can expand it by adding a pattern for the feet to play simultaneously. You can also change the essential pattern if you like or continuously vary it - in this case it’s the basic idea which is important. To explain: A fairly common way of playing fills and grooves on kit is to lead strongly with the right hand - the right hand playing accented notes around the kit to a certain rhythm. The left hand then fills in all the gaps with very light (or ghosted) snare drum notes. This exercise is a reversal of that process. The left hand is the one playing the accented rhythms and moving from drum to drum, while the right is filling in all the gaps with much softer floor tom notes.
This example written below is written as usual for a standard right hander on a standard right-hand drum kit. Lefties will have to swap things as appropriate.
TIP 5 - GENERAL WEAK-HAND SKILL EXERCISE.
This week’s general skill exercise is a really tough one to do quickly! As usual it is written for a right hander, so lefties swap the sticking pattern. The obvious difficulties are that the weak hand is playing an extra note, and that its notes are faster - less gap between them. More difficulty is brought by the requirement of the weak to change speed in the middle of its triple stroke” and also of course the requirement to go from soft to loud to soft. The points to watch are one: getting a quality up stroke on the last note, making sure you begin lifting the arm as early as possible and lead the lift with the wrist joint rather than the tip of the stick. Two: The accented double stroke is performed with height from the elbow. The second part of the double stroke is purely rebounded from the accent and controlled from the fingers only.
As usual - the Blatant self promotion: Check out the “Stick Technique” book at www.sticktechnique.com for heaps more info on drumming technique.
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5 tips for building up the weaker hand - week 09
By Jim | May 17, 2008
5 DRUMMING TECHNIQUE TIPS-A09
5 tips for building up the weaker hand - week 09
By: Jim McCarthy
TIP 1 - TIP FOR TRADITIONAL GRIP USERS.
Here’s a tip that orchestral percussionists might appreciate - or marching enthusiasts. Your average big bass drum is mostly played with a beater in either hand, and one hand on either side of the drum. In most scenarios this is actually the best way to play it and will get the most control over the sound and the smoother sounding rolls etc. The exception of course is particularly when the heads on either side of the drum are different or differently tuned. In this case it might actually be easier to play with both hands working on the same head of the drum. Traditional grip drummers will have an advantage here. Matched grip players will find the required playing position quite difficult with a vertical bass drum. You could of course mount the drum more horizontally, but this usually involves a significant compromise in the sound produced - much less sustain. Traditional grippers can use the left hand quite easily on the same side of a vertical drum as the right hand - after all this is really very similar to an angled snare drum anyway - the actual reason for the existence of the traditional grip! Trying to play strong notes with a big bass drum beater using traditional grip is hard work though, and fantastic for building up strength in the fulcrum. Here’s what to try. Find your latest snare solo or exercises, and try playing them on a vertically mounted bass drum at least once a day this week. Watch your fulcrum build!
TIP 2 - TIP NOT INVOLVING DRUMMING.
Here’s something you can do with your weaker hand if you just happen to be doing some home decorating. Painting! Sound strange? Well some of you might remember the old “Karate Kid” movie and the instruction to “paint the fence”. Half the panels had to be done with one hand and the other half with the other hand. It doesn’t have to be a fence of course it can be pretty much anything, but you may have noticed in the past that it’s quite easy to perform good long strokes with a paintbrush in the strong hand, but we tend to dab and swish with the weaker hand. Next time you are painting - use the weak hand and really concentrate on making good long vertical strokes. Make sure the wrist is bending up and down smoothly with each stroke.
TIP 3 - TIP FOR EVENNESS AND MATCHING THE HANDS.
This week’s tip is quite similar to last week’s. Rather than using differing pitch to get the weak hand overcompensating though, we are going to use different feeling surfaces. The ultimate here is to use a snare or practise pad under the strong hand, and a pillow under the weak hand. This will really make the weak hand work extra hard, but a pillow is probably too soft to make a sound that is very useful in terms of trying to produce an even sound or feel. If you are working on drum kit, a great thing to do is swap the positions of your snare drum and floor tom (I’m assuming your set up is standard here). So now you can play with your strong hand on the snare, and your weak hand on the floor tom. Now go through a bunch of rudiments. Build the speed as you might normally do during a practise session until you are working at close to your top rate. This is where the softer surface of the floor tom will really make the weak hand work harder to stay in the same league as the strong one.
TIP 4 - PLAYING MORE NOTES WITH THE WEAK HAND or LEADING WITH THE WEAK HAND
This tip is a really good one for drum kit players. Not only is it great because it makes the weak hand play twice as many notes as the strong one - but also it is a good “cheats” way to play typical double kick rhythms when you don’t have two bass drums, or a double pedal. As usual it is shown here for a right hander so swap it around if you’re a leftie. You can see that the first note of each beat leads with a bass drum note followed by the strong hand playing a floor tom note. This is the “simulated” bass drum that is useful if your foot is not so fast or getting tired. The weak hand then plays a double stroke on any drum you like - higher pitch. I’ve shown it here going from the snare to the two rack toms, but you can make any pattern you like of course. You might even like to actually lead with the weak hand by swapping the halves of each beat. This means the weak hand starts with the double stroke then you have the kick note, then the floor tom note for each beat.
TIP 5 - GENERAL WEAK-HAND SKILL EXERCISE.
Here’s another great skill exercise that is useful for drum kit players because it actually creates a nice groove. A bit like a double time feel. Not only does the weak hand play an extra note, but it has to be quicker as well. The little double stroke in each beat will take some conscious work from the weak hand to get it sounding strong and clean.
The version above is a simple version played on the practise pad or snare. You can easily adapt it to create nice kit beats by adding foot patterns underneath, or moving some of the notes to other drums. Below is a simple example I’ve created just by moving the first note of each beat to a different drum. These notes can be accent if you like to further emphasize the beat.
As usual - the Blatant self promotion: Check out the “Stick Technique” book at www.sticktechnique.com for heaps more info on drumming technique.
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