What do you think of “open-handed” drumming Sicks Ate? The matched vs trad grip question made me think of it. This is probably beyond the scope of a beginner’s drum lessons, but then again, maybe it isn’t. By open drumming I mean hi-hat on the left hand and snare on the right instead of crossing over as is more traditional. This seems to make a hell of a lot more sense to me, and while the crossed-hand style is what I personally mostly do (except when I’m tying to give my left hand a workout), it is something I feel would have been advantageous to learn early on.
Opinion forthwith, but full disclosure I chose my kit vs. rudimental/marching path pretty early, and obviously chose rudimental/marching. That said, I put my time in behind a set of drums and took lessons through my late teens. It just wasn’t what resonated with me at the time.
Open handed drumming sounds pretty good when you assume the right hand is usually on the hi-hat. As soon as you throw it on a ride or cowbell or something else that is usually set up NOT on the left side of the snare, all assumptions about that go out the window. Considering that most fills etc. will lead with the right, the left will follow right behind coming off of the snare.
Honestly, I think any really able drummer could pull off either. There are left-handed drummers, after all. Throw your ride up on the left side over the hat and just cruise from there? Totally do-able.
Once again, it might just go back to tradition and how most drummers are taught.
I just got around to watching this. Wasn’t familiar with the song, but I LOVE the sound of his drums. So fat. Might be mic’d up and processed, but props anyway.
Edit: And just when I thought I had forgotten everything I know about rudimental drumming, I watch that video and realize that I’d be damn near completely lost behind a kit…
Thought of something
Ah, Okay. Brushes are your Friend. Not sure if they work on electronic drums.
Ok not to hijack, but I went down a YouTube rabbit hole as I am wont to do. I eventually wandered across this, which is an astounding example of what rudimental/marching drumming can be.
Very cool! Thanks.
Yeah, and there are also drummers who set up the hi-hat on the right of the kit, near the ride, and just use a remote pedal on the left, which wasn’t possible with drum kits way back when. So, whatever works. It’s just when I first approached drums in my teens, it kind of made sense to me to hit the hi-hat on the left with the left hand, and the ride on the right with the right hand. The whole crossed position seemed kind of odd to me, though I understand it if you’re right hand dominant, you’ll usually be playing faster and more complex patterns with that hand. At the time, I didn’t really see “open drumming” as an option, but now I see more and more players drum that way, and it is kind of fun and liberating drumming that way, and it does seem to teach a bit more ambidexterity.
It’s interesting for me to see how many different ways drummers drum. Like it sounds you use a forefinger fulcrum – I was taught a middle finger fulcrum. I like the sticks feeling like they’re balancing on their fulcrum point in my hand, and that’s the traditional way to be taught, but then I see guys like Carter Beauford do the most ridiculous stickwork with his hands, but he holds them way back compared to normal. You’re also taught not to hold your pinkies out, but if you watch Jimmy Chamberlin play, his snare hand often has the pinkie stick out. It seems like it’s good to learn traditionally, but not be too concerned if one develops more idiosyncratic technique that is more comfortable, as long as it sounds right.
God damn that is so clean, especially for a group that size.
Agree completely with this. “Just playing along” works for some instruments, but drumming is entirely about consistency and precision. Creativity comes after you’ve already mastered the fundamentals.
I have a friend that I grew up with that wanted to learn the drums so we could start a band, back in our 20s. We had a mutual friend who was an outstanding drummer who tried to teach the him, but he refused to learn the fundamentals because it was boring; he just wanted to bash. He was given simple, proven learning techniques, but he just wanted to be Jimmy Chamberlin from the jump. Needless to say, he was fucking terrible. He could start out a song okay, but the moment he tried to do anything besides a basic beat, which he would do almost immediately, it all fell apart.
Drummers who can’t keep a simple, basic rhythm are absolutely useless. Don’t be that guy.
That’s not what I’m advocating at all, if you read the specifics of what I posted.
I don’t believe they work on electronic drums. The top is just a mesh held taut. There are electronics underneath it that I assume detect its movement. Brushing it won’t produce much movement so I don’t think it will do anything. Scratching the top with my fingernail doesn’t produce any output sound.
I don’t want to turn this thread into a personal drum lesson, but I have a couple of technical questions if you guys don’t mind.
I’ve been playing one of the weak hand exercises that Guest-starring: Id! linked to. It is alternating 16ths on the snare starting with the left hand, but with 2 on the 1st tom, 3 on the 2nd tom and 4 on the 3rd tom. A problem I’m having is when I try to hit 3rd tom with my left hand, I sometimes collide with my right stick. It seems natural after each strike to hold the stick up in preparation for the next, but in this case I guess I should be holding the right stick low to allow room for the left? Or should I be holding my left hand pretty high and striking way down to reach the tom? My 3rd tom is actually about an inch above my snare, but I see in a lot of photos of acousitic kits that 3rd tom is often lower than the snare, which would make this worse. Is it common to hit 3rd tom with the left hand in real playing rather than as an exercise?
Second question: when I hit the kick, does it matter if I leave my foot pressing down until the next strike? I’m unsure if holding the mallet against the drum affects its sound in an acoustic drum. As far as I can tell, it makes no difference with the electronic kick drum I’m using. Any other words of wisdom about proper kick technique would be appreciated.
BTW, Sicks Ate asked for a review of my Alesis kit and I fully intend to do that after I’ve had some more experience with it. Mostly I’m very happy with it so far although there are some things in the electronic user interface that I wish they’d done differently.
What you’re doing is called “burying the beater.” It’s kind of considered sloppy by old-school drum teachers: you’re supposed to let the beater rebound for the best tone. That said, a lot of drummers do bury it.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to “bury the beater”, and now you’re telling me I’ve been doing it wrong??? :eek:
Assuming I’m not being whooshed by innuendo, it’s not so much “wrong” as often seen as not ideal technique. Think of it a bit as if when you hit your drumheads with your sticks, you’d “bury” them into the head instead of letting them naturally rebound, and think about what that does to the tone. There’s a Youtube discussion of it here with audio examples demonstrating the two. Burying the beater I would think is easier vs letting the beater rebound (especially if you’re playing heel-up), so you should be happy you can let the drum properly resonate.
Most of these questions depend on what kind of a beat or fill you’re playing. There can be so many variations, in this regard, that I can’t see any fixed method for how high or low your stick attack should be. Your third tom - which, on an acoustic kit, would be your floor tom - is more or less on the same level with the snare in most set-ups. To add to your bounteous cornucopia of exercises, maybe try (super slowly!) 16ths between just the 2nd and 3rd toms (and between the snare and 3rd tom) until you find your own personal patterns in stick collision avoidance.
Does your foot rest completely flat on the pedal, or do you have just the ball of your foot resting on it? Usually the faster you play, the more sensible it is to have just the ball of your foot resting on the pedal to facilitate rapid response to kick-back (after you’ve struck the head with the mallet), and for more control. For basic, slow to mid-tempo beats, I myself just let the entire sole rest on the pedal. How do you find adjusting the tension on the kick and high hat pedals?
Alesis brand, I see. Their DM5 Module was frickin eh when I used to play.
Connected up its funky sequencer yet to record your playing?
Hey markn+, I was watching reviews of electronic drums thanks to this thread, and ran across this video. I like a lot of the things this guy says that demonstrate good fundamentals. I really like the camera angle where you you can see how his fingers work on the rebound.
I have quibbles with some things; his single-stroke rolls were very right-hand heavy, and his double-stroke rolls were weak on the second stroke. My initial diagnosis is partially because of the thumb-forefinger gap. 
On another listen, his double-stroke rolls were right-hand heavy as well.
Actually, towards the end he’s pretty sloppy. I guess the lesson is you can take good and bad things away from everybody you watch? :):smack:
:DAnd just for the hell of it, more gratuitous marching drumming porn.
Edit: Oh, and this.
Thanks! I had actually run across that video a couple of days ago. I didn’t notice the flaws in his playing though; thanks for pointing that out.
The latest update is I have engaged a drum teacher. I’ve decided there are too many little things that I don’t feel I can adequately pick up just by watching videos, and I don’t want to develop bad habits that I have to work on changing later. I had my first lesson with him today, and I feel it was very productive.
I’ve had my Alesis Surge for about a week now, so here is my initial review. Keep in mind that I’m not a drummer and in fact this is the first drum kit I’ve ever even touched, so take this all with a big grain of salt.
The drum heads are a taut mesh with the fibers spaced about half the spacing of standard window screening. I keep thinking it’s going to rip if I hit it too hard but I’m sure that’s not the case. The snare is 10" diameter and the three toms are 8" diameter. All three toms are physically identical; the software makes them produce different sounds. The drums detect rim shots and make a different sound for them. The hi-hat, crash and ride cymbals are likewise physically identical, each being a 10" plastic disk about 1/4" thick with a rubbery coating on the front half where you strike it. There is a marked area about 2" wide at the front of each cymbal where you can grab it to stop it ringing. I guess there’s a hidden button there; grabbing it anywhere else has no effect on the ringing. The hi-hat pedal just electronically changes the sound of the hi-hat; there is no physical connection between the pedal and the hi-hat. The kick pedal strikes a vertical 8" drum head with a beater.
All the components are mounted on a frame made of 1.5" diameter chrome-plated tubing. The frame and all the physical components seem sturdy and well made.
The electronic module accepts a big plug which has a wire snaking out to each drum and cymbal. There are jacks for connecting a fourth tom and a second crash but these components are not included with the base set. There is a standard 3.5 mm output jack to connect headphones or the like, and two TRS jacks to connect a monitor (left and right, although I’m not sure why drums need stereo output). There is a 3.5 mm input jack, whose purpose puzzled me for a while until I realized it’s handy for playing with headphones on. You can plug in a music source and hear it along with the drums through the headphones. There are also MIDI in and out jacks, and a USB port which the manual says can send MIDI to a computer but I haven’t tried to use any of those.
The module has a number of learning features. It has a metronome which you can set to one of 40 different time signatures. While the metronome is running, when you strike a drum the module will flash an indicator of whether the strike was “good”, “fast” or “slow”. It has a set of beats (snare only) and rhythms (full kit) which you can play along with. When you’re playing a beat or rhythm, it will give you score at the end from 0-100 indicating how well you did. It also has a set of 80 songs that you can play along with. When playing a song, you can independently control the volume of the drums and the accompaniment. So you could for example mute the drum track so you can only hear your own drum playing. You can adjust the speed of the metronome, beats, rhythms and songs, from 30 BPM to 180 BPM.
You can choose between 40 different “kits”, which changes the sound of each of the drums & cymbals, making them sound for example like steel drums etc. You can also directly tweak the sounds, by adjusting the voice, pitch, reverb, and a few other things. I haven’t played around much with the different kits or tweaks.
The module has a set of 12 buttons, each of which is associated with one drum or cymbal. Pressing a button produces the sound of the associated instrument. Each button also has a light on it which flashes when you hit the associated instrument. I have not yet discerned any useful purpose for these buttons, except that when playing a rhythm, the lights show you which instruments should be hit.
My biggest complaint is the user interface in the module. There is a large 6 chracter display, 3 letters followed by 3 digits. This is pretty much the entire UI. Pressing buttons brings up cryptic abbreviations on the display like “BEA004” (beat #4), “PTN022” (pattern #22), “SEN012” (pad sensitivity = 12), etc. It’s a pretty crude interface. There’s also a somewhat confusing mode system – you are in either “normal” mode or “learning” mode, but some features that I would consider “learning”, like playing along with a song, are accessed in “normal” mode while others like playing along to a rhythm are in “learning” mode. However when you’re just playing the drums rather than messing around with learning features, you rarely need to interact with the module’s UI.