5 Drumming Technique Tips

Tip 1 — Tip for traditional grip users

This week’s tip for users of traditional grip might seem a little strange and counterproductive, but bear with me. To put it simply it’s this: this week try using matched grip instead.

Now some of you might already be pretty good at both so it may be nothing special. Some of you reading this will not even use traditional grip at all — in which case, for something different, why not have a go at traditional grip — in both hands even! It will certainly make you feel uncomfortable at first!

In fact, whatever grip you normally use in each hand, I want you to have a go at reversing it. This means that a normal user of traditional grip will use a matched style grip in the left hand and a traditional style grip in the right.

So what’s the point? Well partially it’s simply a matter of building your coordination by working at something you are less used to. You will also be using very different muscles than the ones you usually do, which is good for your overall hand development. Now PARTICULARLY in the case of the normal traditional grip user, working with a matched style grip in the left hand for a while will improve your normal traditional grip. This is because you will be developing your fingers way more, as they can actually power the stick. With traditional grip they play more of a controlling role, so by developing them we gain more control.

Tip 2 — Tip not involving drumming

This week’s tip is a bit of a rip off from week 2’s tip, but worthwhile nonetheless. Your hair! Which hand holds your brush or comb when you fix it in the morning? This week do it the other way around. If you are anything like me, you will feel quite uncoordinated when you brush your hair with the weaker hand.

Tip 3 — Tip for evenness and matching the hands

We have already discussed in this series the concept that we always tend to associate a slightly higher pitch with a louder sound. We discussed what to do when your actual sticks have slightly differing pitches — put the higher sounding one in the weak hand to make the sound subjectively louder.

Now it’s time to use the same principle in reverse. I want you to put the higher pitched stick in your STRONG hand and play some simple combinations like single strokes and double strokes. The key is — you need to LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY! By really striving to match the sound, you will in fact be working your weak hand slightly more to compensate for the pitch. It will really help the general evenness of your playing once you get into the habit of not being lazy with the weaker hand.

In fact, even if you do not have a pair of sticks which are unmatched you can still do this exercise — or if you do, you can make the difference in sound even more extreme. The idea is to use two different playing surfaces. Find things which are similar to a drum to play, and similar to each other, but just ever so slightly different in the pitch they produce. Ideally you will use two practice pads with one tuned just a little higher than the other. The high one is played with the strong hand, and the lower one is played with the weak hand. You could even use a tabletop where it sounds a little different in different spots — often a table will sound slightly higher right over one of the legs, for example.

Tip 4 — Playing more notes with the weak hand, or leading with the weak hand

Here’s a very simple but very good pattern for building the weaker hand — as usual it’s written here for a right hander, so lefties swap the sticking pattern!

This pattern works the weak hand in three ways. ONE: it leads with the weak hand. TWO: it involves more notes in the weak hand. THREE: the weak hand has to play slightly faster than the strong one.

I really recommend working at this exercise with a metronome, otherwise it is just too easy to make all the notes the same speed as we get faster. Start slowly and make sure the rhythm is correct. I recommend setting the metronome to a quaver pulse.

Tip 5 — General weak-hand skill exercise

At the end of April, I wrote an article to go with my videocast about backsticking. You can see that article here. Hopefully by now you have started working on a little backsticking, so here is a good little exercise that particularly works the weaker hand by using it.

As a point of interest, it also involves leading with the weaker hand, which I always try to incorporate into these exercises wherever it’s possible. As usual it’s written for a right hander, so lefties — swap it around.

Not only does the weak hand have to work hard because it is constantly flipping the stick over — it also works hard because the fulcrum is always a little further forward on the stick than is ideal. That is in the nature of backsticking, and if you’re not sure why, then I recommend taking a look at April’s article.