I like to call this: "My hands work great, but why does my right foot make them stop working?" This is a great video. This is exactly the lesson for what I am struggling with. Thanks!
A great track to drum along to, for practicing separating your HH and bass drum, is ‘Airbag’ by Radiohead. It’s relatively slow bpm at around 76 bpm, so it’s excellent for this. Another one is ‘subterranean homesick alien’ also by Radiohead. Playing along to these two tracks helped me with this immensely and they aren’t overly difficult to get the hang of once you are starting to learn more intermediate level beats. Really a lot of Phil Selway beats are great to learn but these two in particular are excellent to start with when you are in the beginner-intermediate stages of your development.
Thanks Jim. I take a similar approach with most lessons I create. I've just launched a free trial of the VIP lessons on my website. If you want to check it out the link is in the video description. I'd be interested to know how you get on with those. Thanks, Joe
Ive played drums for half my life ,and for me whenever i learn songs i usually break them up into segments, if theres a part of a song that i cant play, i only play for example the hi-hat according to the song, then i add the bas drum to that.. When i got that perfect i then add the snare, and when that's good again i add all and any accents to the fill. Same goes for doing things on the right and left side of the drum kit differently. To me when i practice it like this, it sorta "snaps" on either the left or the right side of my brain depending on which side im struggling on (left or right side of the drums) its hard to explain,haha- but its very good tactic.. Basically practice in segments. dont learn 5 things at once.
That's something I'm planning on doing in a future DrumHead column. You need to get comfortable playing 2 vs 3. You can divide each beat into 6. The off beat straight 8ths on the hands will fall on 4, and the off beat swung kicks will fall on 5.
You dont know much you have helped me, this was the only problem I had when I started playing drums and you solved it in 15 minutes what i couldnt do in a year. I dont know how to thank you. You are the real teacher. Thanks a lot
That's a lot of time spent on a single viewer's question. Which means you just earned my full respect. Just subscribed to you, You just have another follower. ( Not that you need me...haha!) but...well...honestly, thanks! great lesson!
What a great breakdown. I recently started focusing on drums since my band lost its last drummer. I have the ability but certain things were beyond me as I am self taught. This really opened my mind to counting the complex patterns I hear in my head.
Haha, thanks. That's actually a very good question and hard for so many beginners. My high hat and bass drum are linked with an invisible wire. If the tempo on one changes the other follows lol. I've never been that good. Some really good tips here. Gotta work on that timing.
Thanks ;) I thought it was worth covering as it's a common beginner question. Also, while demonstrating it I realised how important it is to accurately place those bass drum notes when they're swung.
I find that bouncing my heel on the hi hat to keep the tempo helps enormously. practice keeping a steady tempo with the heel and then try different patterns with kick first. you will find it snaps you out of standard grooves pretty quickly. the tricky bit is learning to rock your foot when you need to open the hi hat. hope it helps. all the best
This is a perfect description of the problem, and a nice way to practice out of it. I noticed that I can only play faster songs when the hi hat is in sync with the bass foot. Slower songs I can mentally force myself out of it. Glad to see I’m not the only one with this problem
Just starting Drums and trying to figure this out, Amazingly helpful! Got some work to do but my brain was NOT able to process the timing differences till I saw this, thanks so much!
What a great lesson. When I started playing I went in there trying to just feel the groove, and play with emotion, which is great too BUT I had to understand and learn that there is a technique to it that involves understanding what it is you're trying to play. Practice will take you to that next level.
Good job Interpreting his question then breaking it down in so many steps. Also good job with catching it was in a triplet pattern and showing how to play that.
Hey man, you're the best! I so much appreciate this video!! Got my first drums when I was 18, started with a band 6 months later and was playing consistently with a working band until I had to decide when I was 28 whether to be a dad/husband or a homeless drummer paying child support. Now 30 years later I bought a set again and was having a bear of a time with my independence. 30 years of 3-finger drumming had trained my brain to play everything with my right hand and I thought I was never going to get my limbs untied again. All it took was this video to make it click again, specifically 4:00-4:30. Three or four times through it and I got my independence back! Going through the rest of it got me smoothing out and feeling a lot more confident that it WILL all come back! Thanks again!!
Hi Ray, Thanks for the kind words. I’m so glad you found this helpful. I have loads of free videos on RU-vid, but if you find yourself wanting more in-depth lessons that go into detail re tackling all sorts of things like this, you might want to check out my site - joecrabtree.com It’s a bit like taking weekly lessons with me and I dive into things in much more detail than in the RU-vid lessons. If you fancy it, you can get 50% off for a limited time with the code HALFOFF All the best, Joe
I had the same problem learning in the mid 90's trying to play metallica's load album. I didn't have a cool breakdown lesson like this and just had to rely on sheer will. Fighting the urge as you say. Great lesson. And your kit sounds great.
Its all about being able to count it out. Know what you are playing. I like to sing out loud my groove which helps me a lot. Great lesson and well explained for beginners.
your videos are very helpful..i like how you spend time on being repetitive..then show slight differences makeing it even easier to understand.. you break it down for us very smoothly!THANKS
Thanks. You might like the lessons on my website (link in video description). I break down some really complicated solos and things to a point where I'm pretty sure you'd understand them.
I've been playing for 3 weeks and had this exact same problem during the first week and a half or so. All I really did was just play slow using only my right hand and food and sort of made a mental note of when both the right hand and food hit separately and simultaneously. When it was finally starting to click, I was still sort of making the motion to hit 8th notes on the 'and' beats, but it was restrained enough to not follow through with the strike. I'm aldready to the point where I don't make any half motions with my right hand on the 'and' beats anymore. However, I will admit that I occasionally throw in an extra 8th note with my right hand when I'm experimenting with different bass beats in different places while I'm in the middle of playing a particular beat that I've already gotten used to. My biggest challenge now is with my left foot. So much work to do!
It's just practice. My advice would be to play 1/4 notes on the hi-hat and work through the permutations of bass drum options. Let's say you're counting 1,2,3,4 for the hihat. Play just the 1 on the kick. Then just the 2, then the 3, etc. Then play on ALL of them. Then play on ALL the off-beat 8th notes. Then try different combinations. Then try some 1/16th note permutations. Just work on these basics and you'll start to feel more comfortable.
Thank you endlessly to both joe and the guy asking the question I wanted to rip my arm off and beat myself with it last night trying to do this same thing ! Im excited to try this tonight. I've been playing 15 days. Lolol
This lesson shows you a nice dynamic trick on hihat to play 8ths and being a ghost on the &'s, just by striking the hat differently for the accents, then without a word he automatically just did that on the triplets accenting the 1/4's and using the tip on the top to get the quiet triplet strikes. Hey I kind of thought this was going to be about the feet, like a 4way independence deal. You can get the 1/4's on the hat with your foot and free your right hand or using that method to get the open hat on the right hand for the &'s.
Excellent advice, thanks. That first section is what Stewart Copeland plays at the start of Roxanne.Like you I prefer the tone of coated ambassador heads for recording but live gigs prefer Emperors.
Really interesting. This tutorial is taking out the HH from the bass drum. I've done the seperation with my feet. Playing every bass drum between every 4r / 8th notes of the HH. Way easier with the 4/4 beats but tripplets came after.
Joe, you said you didn't know it was called a six stroke roll and I'm not surprised because it's not what I know as a six stroke roll either! Sixty years ago I was taught that rudiment with the sticking LLRRLR or RRLLRL with the two single strokes accented. I've met many rudimental players in the UK and USA and the all played it the way I describe, the one you demo is a new one for me.
This lessons really sint for me bt... I think it is awesome that you take the time to give basic lessons. many online drum "teachers" seem more concerned with sounding like super drum gods than actually teaching.
Excellent. Best is in the final sentence. "do it slowly." Break the pattern out, built it up really slowly. Like in the slow readers class. Play it really slow, then, gradually as you fix it in your head, gently try a spead up, then slow it down again. Practice doing it slowly. Top vid.
A great exercise that helped me in the early days was to play a paradidle between right foot and left hand and playing eighth notes with the right hand. Do the same with quarter notes on the high hat. I also used to imagine an upward hit with my right hand if I'm playing the kick on the 'ands' (off the beat)... Once it klicks it's no longer an issue. Hope this helps...
My Hero of the Foo Fighters is one good example of how hard it is to play like this. Sustaining the hi hat pattern against the bass drum is hard as hell.
This reminds me of when I started playing drums. I tried to play the groove from coldplay - in my place, but my right hand could only play 16th notes over the bass drum. After a little while I caught on. This really is a good question.
i think that is not only begginer question. you can find yourself having difficulty playing some more complex beats with just quarter notes on the hihat. what i came up with once was first playing all the pattern without right hand. it needs to be remembered well before you can try to add the right hand, which then would sound like a metronome!
my problem exactly..my right hand wants to do the same as my right foot..my problem is more when a song goes to a cymbal.. I will practice things you showed here , but the lesson totally went over my head =/ my example is say GnR welcome to the jungle..when he goes to the cow bell you are doing 1 12 1 12 on bas drum and 1 1 1 1 on the cowbell
If this is over your head; what you can do is play triplets; that is : bass-then right hand snare-then left hand snare; repeat this; bass rh lh quite a bit in your practise; this will help you get the feel of separation. Later you can switch to one hand on the hi-hat and one hand on the snare still doing triplets. Be well!
