Download the sheet music here: bit.ly/3ik3LfS Subscribe or I'll steal your cymbals: bit.ly/2AyH1Fb Your weak drumming hand can be a real pain to deal with. This quick drum lesson gives you a program for your weak drum hand. 6 exercises, less than 13 minutes a day, for 22 days. Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!
Drumeo who?(lol, they are pretty good too) This is the best drum tutorial channel on RU-vid. Your tutorials feel like you are teaching me directly, not just a generic video.
Nothing against Jared and the gang at Railroad Media, I was one of their supporters to build their new studio, but I’ve got to agree, I feel, as an advanced player, I learn far more here!!!
The best advice I ever received was from Dom Famularo: don't have a weak hand at all, instead switch to open-hand drumming. I was a traditional cross-handed drummer for a few years until I followed Dom's advice, and it was the best change I ever made. Don't cross your hands, play with your left hand on the hi-hat, right on the snare. Stick with it and it's like having two right hands, plus you can hit any part of the kit you like with your right hand which massively opens up your playing (it's like having twice as much drumkit!). When I discovered the massive benefits, like the increase in power, relaxation, better posture, and ability to play more of the kit, I was genuinely angry that I'd been taught to play cross-handed at all. Now whenever I teach drums, I start students off open-hand on day one. We should leave cross-handed playing in the 20th century.
Hey, glad to see somebody else thinking this way...see my comment from a day ago. It’s amazing how there are huge discussions about traditional vs matched grips, but hardly anybody is discussing crossed vs open handed drumming. The traditional grip is pretty much on life support but cross handed is still a 99% favorite, for some weird reason.
@@StephenTaylorDrums Why not flirt with it for a week? Stuff like breakbeats or off-kilter jazz will be way too difficult to start off with, but try all your meat and potatoes rock beats open-handed. What happens when you go for a fill, or hit a crash? What happens to the sound of your backbeat? It's all very interesting stuff to work out and re-coordinate. FYI: most of the conversion process is done *away* from the kit, tapping your fingers when you're bored at church. That's where you really learn to re-coordinate. A friend of mine has converted as well, and it wasn't too painful for him.
@@johnknight9150 Absolutely right, especially when you have like three kits surrounding you like I have. Simon Phillips was my inspiration to teach myself open handed. When your kit is just as big on your left side as it is on the right you really don't have much choice but to relearn to drum the right way (open handed). I also wish that I never learned that cross handed method.
@@FrankPCarpi Simon Phillips, yeah, you've got taste. If you don't mind heavy metal, check out Gene Hoglan and the current drummer for Jinjer (anything from the last couple of years).
Hey man, I’m a 59 year old trying to get some of my chops back from the old days. I’ve been working this exercise for the last 4 nights. Feeling the burn and I could actually feel my finger starting to work with my hand again. Also working on isolating the last three fingers to improve touch and control. I’m not setting any world records, but I’m noticing a difference already and feeling more confident! Keep up the awesome lessons!
I'm a 34yr old drummer who started 2yrs ago so I'm trying to soak up all these technique exercises. I didn't realise you had a podcast, I just subscribed. Thank you for all the content! 🙂🤘🏼🥁
Good luck with learning at your age. I didn't start drumming until I was 29, and it takes a lot of dedication and practice. I envy these kids who are drumming at 5 years young. By the time they get to older age they're going to be mad drummers.
Hey Stephen, first, thanks for all the great videos. After many short attempts at learning drumming over the years I have finally decided (at the young age of 71!) to give it another shot and your lessons are going to be my go to resource for quite a while. I decided to take a radical approach to the weak hand problem, I uncrossed my hands. Now my weak hand is on the hats, working and burning. It is coming along fast, I am noticing progress in just two weeks. From way back in my life when I first remember watching drummers I have never understood that whole crossed hand deal. It makes as much sense to me as the traditional grip, which is zero for both. Both look unergonomic, limiting and, for me, both fail to answer a very important question: why do it that way? I am an engineer and energy efficiency is something I value. I did some research and there are many professional drummers who play open handed, so it looks very doable. I realize I will have to rework some sticking patterns, but that will just make me better understand the art and science of drumming. Comments, anyone?
Open handed is way better.. beginners just copy the cross hand when they see pros do it..but it limits you..open hand is more natural...if you give a child drumsticks. They will naturally play open handed...
We actually didn't start out on the kit as cross handed. The hihat was a later invention. And it was originally called a sock cymbal...because it was low and by the ankle to be played with the left foot. I believe the cross came when it was raised and started to become a more prominent role in the music. Then I think the crossing happened without much thought...and stuck. You are right. Open handed makes A LOT of sense.
My campaign is called “push through the suck”. I feel like that’s the biggest challenge - allowing yourself to hear yourself not up to par and just keepin goin through it. Thanks for the video.
I almost get the feeling this lesson is a bit more about interdependence then strengthening the weak hand, but either way, much appreciated!!! My workout and strengthening has been from switching to open handed playing, but I’m going to give this a try!!!
Playing "Don't Stop Believing" correctly really helped my weak hand while gigging. Now I love switching between closed right and open left while playing.
I am definitely going to see how well I can swing it. It shouldn't be a big stretch from what I have to do anyway... I have a jumbo kit. Good luck working with it.
Truly Great advice! 👍🏻 It’s what I advise my students and something my drum teacher taught me right from the off also.... work the weak hand in practice and use more in everyday life. I am now good and comfortable at playing right or left lead.
Mr Taylor, when you said ( in another video )you used your middle finger as the fulcrum and kept your index finger sort of out of the way, I experimented. I was doing 16ths for 1 minute at 180bpm . Thanks to you it is up to 200 for 1 minute and silky smooth. . Thank you Sir
Before you start training your weak hand two or three times more intensely than your leading one, you need to teach it the correct movements. All teachers always overlook this point, although further success fundamentally depends on it - because it is useless to practice movements that involve an incorrect balance between the individual components of such a complex movement as hitting with a stick. Your weak hand is not just weaker than your leading one - it is more inept than your leading one. So if you want it to become equal, you will have to fully comprehend what your dominant hand is doing and copy it to your weak hand - a process in which it makes no sense to talk about how much more you need to do with one hand than another. You simply take and work on your weak hand on its own. As much as it takes until you feel like you have the correct motor skills. Only then can you begin to involve it in joint play with your dominant hand, making sure not to lose the correct motor patterns during play. And only after that you can begin to strengthen it, playing 2-3 times more than with the other hand.
holy Sh!t... What??? I'm a Guitarist and I recently discovered this channel, and until this moment I didn't know there were different ways to grip a dumstick.... Holy Crap I never knew drumming was so technical... French grip, German grip, rebound, whatever else he said... Mind officially blown I used to live with a drummer and he showed me "how to hold a drum stick"... I didn't know there were different ways... now I wanna learn them. in fact, I think I wanna learn drums.
I had just decided to not bother learning after refurbishing a tattered set of drums, which I love doing. I bought these for my grandson but have always wanted to learn drums. My left hand just won’t co-operate. Then I get this email , so there’s still hope. I will get back to you in a few weeks. I still have my guitar.
Here’s a hand workout that I’d like your take on. Really it is more a hand motion, independence deal. Play swung shuffle in one hand & straight eights in the other. Switch both left & right hands. You have two time feels playing over or under each other depending on accents & dynamics of each hand. You will here & feel the possibilities in theses motions. I dig it because it’s funny sounding. Rhythmic dissonance! Guaranteed to put a grin on your face.
There are 2 aspects to fixing the weak hand. There are a million exercises you can do to strengthen the arm, wrist and fingers. But if your GRIP is wrong, it’s all irrelevant. I speak from experience. I did every exercise there is, and got nowhere, because my grip was the problem. That needs to be addressed first.
@@StephenTaylorDrums ye I was practicing rudiments as well and using it always and that has helped it's not strong like my left hand but it's much stronger than it used to be
You can train the body to do ANYTHING in 20 days with discipline. Muscle memory can be taught in a day, but body acceptance is basic biomechanics. 20 days IS the magic number!
From what I’ve found when I started strengthening my left hand is that your really not strengthening your hand, your just wearing it out so you can find the flaw in your technique and you just have to learn how to copy your strong hands technique on the other hand
Hi @stephen taylor, I love your lesson I’m slowly coming back to drumming and it’s been very hard since the last time I played was more than 15 years ago. I would appreciate if you make an outro for your videos since RU-vid (GOOGLE ADS) always cut your video right before the end so we can’t watch your complete video without repeating it over and over again. Love your works 🙏
I have a very strange issue, I am neither a pure rightie or leftie. When I started primary school I was writing with my left hand but the teacher forced me to write with right hand and I learned to write with right hand. Now I am doing some activities with right hand and some activities with left hand( like playing hoops I shoot with my left) . As for drumming I play like a normal rightie but my weak hand is my right hand. I tried to switch using right hand on snare and left on HH but I didnt feel comfortable. Has anyone experienced this? Do you have suggestions?
Ouch. I have been doing this for just about a week now. It took me some time to get the rhythm of all of them and my poor left arm is so tired the next day I can hardly do any other practice. The hand simply cannot keep up with even simple exercises. At least I can watch my left hand and pick out the weak parts. I discovered I kept my left elbow in tighter than my right. Next I noticed that going to the toms I was reaching straight whereas I needed to hold my elbow up more to keep a good hand position. Tough being a beginner and solo!
Hi Stephen, first of all thanks for your work, I love to follow your videos, always very informative, funny and impeccably explained. For the execution of the exercises, in general, do you recommend seeking the perfection of execution, perhaps penalizing the speed or instead do you recommend looking for the maximum speed that can be reached, perhaps penalizing the quality of the execution instead? For these specific exercises what could be a sufficient execution speed?
I wanna get into doing this like to improve my right hand even more so how long should I do each exercise per day and what bpm do I start with on day 1 and how much do I increase per day?
I'm left handed but luckily I feel comfortable playing a right handed kit and play crossed handed but I need more speed for my kick pedal and to play more faster
Finally got around to doing this REALLY GREAT workout and experiencing awesome results!! I'm curious, why 22 days? Why not 30 days or 15 days. I could give you my answer..
Yes..that's a great rudiment for doing as you describe..also it will make your doubles better..5 mins per day on triple stroke...do it with bounce and also with just wrist.to strengthen other rudiments..bounce for speed...wrist for power .. especially if use German grip
I have had to play buckets and a practice pad and backpacks for cymbals for almost a year waiting to get my kit 😞 I can play eyeless and disasterpice by slipknot though
I will try these since my weak hand is dismal. However that second exercise is confusing. You do not actually show how your "triplets" flow into the next measure even though you say it changes what beat the accent is on during the second measure. Uh, yeah ... what? I just count it as sixteenths. I am exercising my hand, not trying to conform it to a modified twist in the beat. That just does it more in a slow-slow-slow-fast rhythm P.S. I also count it one-ah-and-ah rather than one-ee-and-ah since that makes it sound like a squeak in the pedal.
Great stuff to start with but don't be disappointed or discouraged if you find that it takes more time, work & exercises to sort out your weak hand. That has been my experience.
I still have to work to on you Hand technique 101 course, do you think I can tack this on to it for daily practice? I'm really trying to learn open handed playing, crossing over aggravates injuries in my right arm
I was born left-handed but I played the drums right-handed. Meaning that my strong hand is my left on the snare. So how would these exercises help me if my left hand is already strong?
I here some people say don't lift weights when training your week hand (or both for that matter) as it can mess with the response etc...any truth to that?
@@StephenTaylorDrums I would buy one in a NY minute. I bought the course that you linked in this video. I think you are an excellent teacher. Thank you.
Stephen Taylor Love the sound of both the 20” & 22” Renaissance! I just ordered a 20” K Con medium ride. I love the sound of the 20 Philly Joe Jones K Con, but I buy from my local store up here in Winnipeg,Canada.For those that don’t know, the Philly Joe Jones K Constantinople Ride is an exclusive model that is only sold through Memphis Drum Shop. John Riley told me the closest K Con ride in sound to the Philly Joe Jones ride is 20" a K Con Medium.
Hey Richard...if you didn't receive the pdf booklet, email help@stephensdrumshed.com and let Grant know what you requested. We'll get that to you asap. Check your spam folder as well
I thought you were just going to giveaway the "weak hand bootcamp" for free...lol. I paid $7 to add it to "Ghostnote mastery", Firestompers, PuddleJumpers, ect. Now I can't remember if those last 3 that you show are in there...🤔???
I'm almost 50 and really learned everything backwards. I bought these 3 books about a month ago and started working through the Stick Control book. Just going through pages 5 through 7 with a metronome and putting the kick on 1 and 3 and the hats on 2 and 4. It is ABSOLUTELY CRAZY to me how much I am improving after being stuck for so long. I wish I had taken this advice a long time ago, I thought it was a little beneath my skill set...I WAS SO WRONG! (Thank you for recommending these 3 books Stephen! 🥁🔥) *Pictures of Stick Control, Syncopation, and New Breed wouldn't upload to comments section*
So after doing these exercises, we just might be ready to advance to what this guy does, which is play with only his left hand because he has no choice, he has no right arm: m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-j25C1oDFP6w.html. That’s right, he taught himself to play with only his left hand because he lost his right arm in an accident. He had to fix his weak hand, he no choice. Now knowing about this guy, you gotta ask yourself a question, do you still have an excuse to complain about your weak hand? Well, do you, punk?
