The 4 Hand Techniques Every Drummer MUST KNOW!

one of the biggest dumpster fires of topics amongst drummers has got to be hand technique you've got all sorts of terms being thrown out there left and right when we're talking about the big molar system or even the big burns more thing first basic hand technique the rebound which i call the free stroke the push pull and oftentimes these terms tend to confuse people more than actually help them then you have this other thing that happens where a drummer will introduce a technique and then they'll go straight into blazing fast examples of it on a practice pad just so you know who's boss and hey playing fast on the pad is all well and good but it doesn't really demonstrate how to use these techniques practically in the real world with actual grooves and fills so today i want to try and condense everything down and present to you a crash course in all things hand technique i'm gonna do my absolute best to break down all the different grips and techniques that you gotta know and most importantly show you how they're applied to the kit and i'm gonna try to do all of that without over complicating the crap out of everything wish me luck all right first up you gotta know how to hold your sticks it's really not complicated just open your hand up place the stick in the fat of your hands put your thumb on the stick and wrap the rest of your fingers around it this gives you a nice purchase on the stick and allows you to maintain control of it without having to squeeze very hard now let's talk about the basic mechanics of how to move the sticks in relation to the surface you're playing on this is often referred to as grip and there are two main grips that you need to be familiar with the german grip and the french grip german grip is like bouncing a basketball the hands are positioned over the sticks and you simply move them up and down using the natural hinge at your wrist french grip on the other hand is like twisting a doorknob you bring your hands inwards and under the sticks and simply rotate your hands back and forth and a great way to practice each of these grips is to play simple patterns and gradually move them back and forth from the german position to the fringe this allows you to feel out how each position works and what different muscle groups they use and it'll show you that there's a lot of gray area in between those two positions as well and oftentimes you hear people refer to that gray area in between german and french as american grip but don't concern yourself too much with all the terms that i'm gonna throw at you today everyone uses different terms for all of these techniques the most important thing to focus on is how these grips and these techniques take advantage of your body's natural mechanics so you can stay relaxed and not injure yourself when you play now let's talk about how these grips are used in the real world practically speaking most drummers use some version of german or american grip the majority of the time they play because of their straightforward approach but there are times when the french grip can come in real handy namely when you're playing time on the ride cymbal and the hi-hats since the ride is offset to the right of the kit the rotation of the french grip is perfect for keeping your arm nice and relaxed by your side instead of having to move it outwards in order to use german grip and on the hi-hats using french grip allows you to move your right hand back towards you a bit more leaving your left arm more room for your back beats and best of all since french grip puts your hand underneath the stick it allows you to play a bit lighter on the cymbals and it gives your fingers more access to the stick which allows you to play faster groupings of notes more efficiently alright we are chugging right along we now know how to hold the sticks and we know the basic mechanics of how they're able to move now it's time to talk about the four main techniques used to make the sticks move and those four techniques are as follows wrist strokes finger strokes whipping strokes and push pull let's break them down with wrist strokes you keep the sticks secured snugly in your hands and simply move them up and down using your wrist and forearm muscles this technique is great for control since you're in charge of the stick's movement the entire time but it lacks in efficiency and speed because you're really just muscling everything out with finger strokes which is also known as rebound strokes you grip the sticks between your thumb and index finger which is known as the fulcrum and you use your back three fingers to pull the stick down for the stroke and then allow the stick to fly back up on its own you can think of it kind of like dribbling a basketball this is great for efficiency and speed not only because the sticks rebound on their own but also because fingers have a smaller muscle mass than the wrist and the forearm which allows them to move a lot quicker now wrist strokes and finger strokes are the foundation and the glue for absolutely everything we play and it's for that reason that drummer should start with those techniques first but as you improve and gain more experience on the drums you're going to begin to notice that they sound a little bit stiff when used in isolation with grooves and fills that's because it's just straight up and down not a lot of feel and dynamics going on with them and the key to leveling up your playing and adding some more of that feel and dynamics in is to incorporate the whipping stroke along with your wrist and finger strokes this is a huge game changer in your playing and it really separates the beginners from the pros so let's talk about it to perform a whipping stroke which is also known as the molar stroke we're gonna throw some arm into the mix to start first lift your elbow up and leave your hand down then you drop your elbow and lift your hand up at the same time and you'll find that the hand then whips the stick back down naturally this gives you a ton of power with very little effort used since you're using your arm's weight for the stroke instead of muscling everything out to perform multiple strokes with this technique you again whip the stick down for a down stroke and then as you're lifting your elbow back up for your next stroke you play an upstroke so now you can go back and forth between downstrokes and up strokes all with one consistent motion you'll see this technique used all over the place let's take a look at it again with that pocket beat you can see that i'm using whipping strokes on the hats which makes those constant eighth notes easier to pull off and gives them more feel since they now have a pulse to them also take a look at my left arm when it's prepping for the back beats you can see i'm using the whipping stroke there as well which gives my back beats a ton of power and creates an even bigger dynamic difference between them and my ghost notes one important thing to note is that at this more moderate tempo i'm simply holding onto the stick and combining wrist strokes with those whipping strokes which gives me a lot of control over the stick but when you really want to crank up the tempo you're going to want to switch to finger strokes in combination with those whipping strokes and that'll let you play a little bit lighter and let the sticks do more of the work and you'll just be able to let them fly this more finger focused whipping stroke also works well with those fast 16th note halftime grooves [Music] and of course you can use this technique in your fills as well and it's a great way to add accents into simple right left right left alternating sticking kind of fills it's also a great way to create drum solos [Music] as you can see this technique is used like all over the place all the time it's one of those night and day things where there's a time before using the whipping stroke in your playing and then there's a time after so if you haven't yet introduced it into your playing i would highly recommend that you start alright we've got just one more technique to talk about and that's the push pull now if you haven't noticed pretty much everything we've done up to this point has just involved single strokes but what happens when you need to play doubles or triples or any other fast groupings of notes that's where the push-pull technique comes into play so let's check it out people tend to make this one out to be a lot trickier than it actually is and i think that has a lot to do with how it's taught you have a lot of teachers breaking it down by showing their students something like this where you perform a stroke and push your fingers out as the stick hits the surface then you pull the stick back in with your fingers as you lift your hand back up which gives you a second stroke and the idea is that this gives you those two strokes for one motion however i've learned over the years by working with a bunch of students that that's over complicating the technique and it's really not even how most drummers learn the pushball technique to begin with so let me give you my little secret in getting this technique down check it out you want to start by playing wide open rebound strokes like we did before again we're pulling the stick down with our fingers and letting it rebound back up on its own now here's the trick as it hits the surface you just squeeze the stick into your hand with your fingers don't change anything else keep those big strokes going up and down and just squeeze the stick into your hand as you do so you'll see that this magically gives you two notes instead of one this is the genesis of the push-pull technique it all comes from first getting solid double strokes down by squeezing the stick into your hand with your fingers and here's where the real magic starts to happen you can get all sorts of different groupings and rhythms all with that same technique by simply changing the rate at which you squeeze the stick into your hand for instance i can go from doubles to triples i can swing those triples giving me the standard jazz ride pattern i can also get singles which is how the technique is usually demonstrated but funny enough it's really not used for singles very often for that we have those other techniques but it does look cool and it does really look like you're pushing and pulling and i can also get swung singles like you'd use in shuffles so now let's put it into practice on the kit here it is with a funk groove on the hi-hats [Music] here it is again on the hi-hats but this time with a half time [Music] shuffle now let's move it to the ride for a little bit of jazz and now let's move it to the bell of the ride for a little bit of latin and finally this technique opens you up to a whole new world of rudiments like the double stroke roll the six stroke roll paradiddles and flams and that's just to name a few and the ability to play all of these different rudiments allows you to add a ton of sauce into your playing [Music] all right that is pretty much everything that you need to know about hand technique or at least enough to get you started wouldn't you say and of course there are no rules to any of this and every drummer has his or her own approach to technique but there are established norms at this point and i wanted to do my best to lay them all out for you in one single video so now when you go watch your favorite drummers you'll be able to know what techniques they're using and now you'll hopefully know why for those of you that want to get started on these techniques at home i'll have linked down below transcriptions and practice loops of some of my favorite exercises to get you going in the right direction but that's gonna do it for this one everybody i really hope that you enjoyed it thanks as always for watching and i will see you all next time you take it easy bye bye

Channel: Jeff Randall

Views: 641,003

Keywords: drum lesson, jeff randall, hand technique, rebound stroke, wrist stroke, finger stroke, free stroke, moeller stroke, push pull technique, warm up, practice pad, The 4 Hand Techniques Every Drummer MUST KNOW!

Id: FstCw876T9M

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 04 2021