DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

I'm on the train to my lesson and I'm trying reeeeeally hard to distract myself so I don't fall into nervous thinking pattern and/or prescript the whole thing in my head before it even starts. Will report back on my way home.

Remember to yell KIA!!! and u will do great!

fear is the mind killer

I got here way too early and walked around the neighborhood to relax and it's awful (makeup designer clothing babies froyo) so now I'm armed with the confidence of being cooler than this neighborhood. I'll be ok. No fear. No apologizing. No crying. No babbling. Deep breathing.

Are there toned yoga bitches y/n

There were tons of them! The whole hood is made for them like an amusement park.

Good news!! I did it! And I even got some extra time because he felt like we were on a roll. Bad news is that I've been playing backwards. Good news is that he said I've got a good sense of rhythm/coordination and good ideas.

Overall: good. My prepared speeches came in handy too!!

did their toned buttocks reverberate with the resounding report of your ratamacue?

What do you mean "backwards"?

did he tell you you should be playing kick drum with your left foot?

I was playing the hi hat with lefty and i guess i should have been using crossover righty. He's left handed too. I just need to get used to it. I think it'll be ok.

Also he told me I should be playing the bass drum with my elbow.

J/k

God I feel so much better knowing that the first lesson is over.

xp - as a left-handed person, that just seems silly. I dunno. Crossing over isn't ideal, but crossing over with your weaker hand? For a while I tried playing hi-hat without crossing over with my right (weaker) hand, and it was ok, though the challenge was that the patterns involved leading with the hi-hat and following w/the snare, which is easier when you are leading/playing on the beat with the stronger side of your body.

Unless you aren't doing much with the hi-hat? Though it sounds like what you want to play is standard rock beats, in which case that seems like setting yourself up for a major handicap.

I trust him - I might not be explaining it properly.

are you playing the kick drum with your left foot and the hi-hat with your right foot, or vice versa?

LL is playing a right-handed kit iirc. crossing over gives you more dexterity.

I'm playing normal! My hands were screwed up, not my feet.

i mean, maybe he's teaching you play a kit set up for a right-handed person in a standard manner

i learned to play a kit set up for a left-handed person, as I am a left-handed person.

Weird, I never thought of handedness as being an issue with drums. You have to use both hands anyway. One shouldn't be weaker than the other really. And righties are typically playing the snare with their left hand, so that's theoretically "backwards" anyway isn't it?

the strength of learning to play right-handed is that you'll be able to share someone else's kit without moving anything around.

I can't imagine setting up the drums backwards. That would mean you could never use somebody else's kit, use one at a rehearsal space, try out drums in a drum shop, etc. without moving everything around.
xp

nb I am not a drummer, I just know things.

I never use someone else's kit without moving at least some things around.

I mean assuming a gig or a rehearsal anyway.

I mean it's kind of crazy not to, it's like trying to ride the bike of a person 8 inches taller than you without lowering the seat.

the whole point of crossing your right hand over is that you can keep your left hand on the snare while the right hand moves around the kit. so you can play the same pattern on hats, ride, floor tom, etc. and it will feel the same. you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!

. And righties are typically playing the snare with their left hand, so that's theoretically "backwards" anyway isn't it?

Not backwards! If you look at the common patterns in rock and jazz, the hand doing most of the work keeping the beat is the stronger hand: the ride cymbal in the case of jazz, and crossing over to play hi-hat in rock.

Drums were my third instrument, after piano and bass, and the beauty of drums for me, were that drums are modular. I would not have a handicap for not being tall, or having small hands, or being a lefty. So, when left-handed people learn to play right-handed, it makes me a little angry, like why not cater to your own body as opposed to trying to conform to the other 90% or whatever?

moving things around is nbd but moving everything into a completely backwards kit is pretty crazy, no?
xp

I mean it's kind of crazy not to, it's like trying to ride the bike of a person 8 inches taller than you without lowering the seat.

― PJ. Turquoise dealer. Chatroulette addict. Andersonville. (Hurting 2),

EXACTLY!!!

are we talking a right handed or left handed bike?

I don't think I've ever seen a drummer with their kit set up backwards. It would be like having a custom piano set up backwards. Just practice so that one of your hands is not stronger than the other!

I can't imagine setting up the drums backwards. That would mean you could never use somebody else's kit, use one at a rehearsal space, try out drums in a drum shop, etc. without moving everything around.

I'm not saying you shouldn't learn to use a righty kit. I will play it that way sometimes if I am using someone else's and it's just an informal jam or chaotic improv gig. My teacher was a right-handed person and he would entertain himself trying to play left-handed. He also had us work on doing paradiddles with the feet, because, hey, why not?

I just feel like it's easier and more self-esteem boosting to learn in a way that is easier on your body, and then work on limb independence a lot so that you could play a backwards kit or what have you

I don't see what's so hard about switching it up unless you're using some kind of 30-roto-tom monster kit. Put the hi-hat where the floor tom is and vice versa, maybe switch the ride and the crash if that makes you more comfortable, and switch toms 1 and 2.

sorry I mean the snare where the floor tom is and the hi-hat on the other side. It's maybe like 5 minutes of work.

It isn't that hard really! I've done it a bunch! You just have to be efficient about it. There are people that spend even longer re-tuning and adjusting little things on someone else's kit without moving stuff around.

Drums just seem so awkward and unnatural anyway when you first start out. It never occurred to me that there would be a particular way of doing it that would be easier on your body depending on if you're right or left handed. It just seems arbitrary.

he whole point of crossing your right hand over is that you can keep your left hand on the snare while the right hand moves around the kit. so you can play the same pattern on hats, ride, floor tom, etc. and it will feel the same. you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!

― wk, Friday, July 26, 2013 6:51 PM

this. this. this. not the other things that people are talking about.

(although the thing about being able to jump onto another person's kit without reversing everything is a nice bonus)

It never occurred to me that there would be a particular way of doing it that would be easier on your body depending on if you're right or left handed. It just seems arbitrary.

A drum kit is not a piano! It consists of a bunch of pieces that you can assemble however you want!

the only exception is double-bass pedals -- but left-handed double-bass pedals are mass-produced and available.

maybe my right hand isn't very dominant or something. I'm trying playing open handed and playing backwards air drums and there's not a huge difference. but trying to play the kick with my left foot would definitely throw me off.

the biggest difference I notice is when I am either playing fast or playing a fairly complex pattern.

I'm left handed and I've always been suspicious of the "teach left handers to play right handed" thing. I know I could never do it. I play open-handed, with the hi hat squished in awkwardly as far over to the right behind the snare as I can get it without the snare getting completely in the way of my left foot.

although tbh I do always fantasize about there being a better way, like I wish I had one of those wire-driven hi hats so I could separate the pedal from the hats

my drum teacher had one of those! It's a similar mechanism to a bicycle brake iirc

The downside of being left handed and playing open is that you end up being far more familiar with the work of Carter Beauford than you might have liked, haha.

do you use trad or matched grip, Dan?

matched because I am a plebe

you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!
this is what i was doing and it was really weird but i just kept doing it

also pretty much ignoring everything that runs opposite to what my teacher says from this point forward -- it's really good to have an irl point person whose job it is to help me. i'm not used to requiring that sort of help, but i'm appreciating it atm.

Whatshisname from Faith No More plays hats/ride with his left hand and set up on his left w/ the rest of he