Tips to Improve Your Drum Technique

greetings everybody nick devergillio here and today we're going to talk about five fundamentals of drumming that will help improve your technique keep drumming fun so you can play well on into your golden years let's go [Music] [Music] before i get into the meat of this video let's first talk about who this video is for and aimed at this video is really geared toward a newer player or someone who's been playing for a while but maybe just is stuck a little bit bored needs some like a refresher that's who this video is for so let's get into it now getting back to fundamentals is really good for anything you do really in life so the first thing we're going to talk about now is how you sit behind your drum kit i've been playing drums for a very long time i started playing drums when i was 4 years old so that puts me around 45 48 years or so of playing drums and what i'm going to talk to you about here is things that really work for me teachers taught me these things and i've they've stood the test of time so sitting behind your drum kit what i feel works best and if you were a student of mine and you're like say your very first lesson this is what i would show you sitting behind your kit you should be up high enough to where your thigh the top of your thigh is parallel to the ground or even better a little bit above parallel reason being is so much of the lower body is used when you play drums stemming from your hips down into your thighs in your calves and into your feet and if you sit too low it can put a strain on your lower back and if you want to play drums for that many years you definitely do not want to have back problems later on in life what a drag that would be so sitting up a little bit higher lets gravity do its job especially towards your foot pedals also it gets you a little bit above your kit which makes it way easier for your hands so let me say it one more time sit up high enough so where your thighs are just above parallel to the ground below you and you'll be comfortable for a long period of time now let's get into fundamental number two how you set up your drum kit now i know every drummer is different we all have different size drum kits different preferences four piece kits five six seven and bigger racks stands toms mounted on the kick drum mounted on the symbol stands all kinds of different things that's all great but the key to it all is to set up your drums ergonomically so you can get to all of your drums and symbols easily and you don't make any unnecessary movement that will tax your body you're not slouching over you're not putting strain on your lower back you know strain on your shoulders all those kind of things so ergonomic is the key word here now there are drummers out there in the world that like their drums very flat there's drummers that like them tilted in all different ways i tend to have my drums tilted a little bit my floor time and my snare have just a little bit of a tilt not totally flat just a little bit of a tilt now i play match grip so i don't need my snare drum bent over like a traditional grip player would so just a little bit of tilt and then i try to have my snare drum and my floor tom or four toms if i have a second one at the exact same height okay i've seen a lot of drummers who have their snare drum in position and then the floor toms are way lower or tilted way down and they have to kind of bend their wrists to get to the floor toms i just wouldn't recommend that i would try to steer you towards having everything the same height with the same tilt so when you go from your snare to your floor toms it's just a simple movement to the right or if you're a left-handed player to your left now for the rack toms i have a little more of a tilt because i want to get to them i want to see them and it's easy to reach with the tilt that i have here i like to have my smaller tom if i have two toms i play a four piece kit sometimes and then i go to a five or six piece now if i have two toms like i have here i like to have the second rack tom a little bit down from the first rack tom now if you look at the overhead shot the first rack tom looks like it's a tiny bit farther away than the second one the second rack tom is a 12 inch to bigger drum so that's gonna do that naturally but you'd be surprised at what you see some drummers do when they set up their drums in all kinds of wacky ways so have the first rack tom the smaller one set right there the next one a little bit down from it so you're kind of going from high to low now say you add a third tom such as an eight inch tom to the left over here just set it up a tiny bit higher same angle as the other toms so you have a nice round ergonomic way to get from your left to your right and back again now there are some drummers who set up their toms in a wacky way they might have the 12 then the eight then the 10 just to have different tone options going from left to right even if you do that have the toms at the same angle the same tilt so you can still get from your left to your right and back and forth nice and easily and you can reach everything with no problems now let's get to symbols there's a couple different ways you can go here for your crash cymbals i like to have all the crash symbols the same height that way the sound reaches the overhead mics whether you're on a live stage or in the studio at the same time so so you have like an 18-inch crash on your right and a 16 on your left or something like that the volume difference is not going to be totally out of whack because there are all kinds of different heights now for everything else just place it comfortably as you can see i only have three symbols set up here today a ride in two crashes so it's really easy to get them the same height the ride at a nice spot so i can reach it easily it's an easy setup now there's going to be many studio situations and live situations where you're going to want to have a lot more symbols set up because there's some beautiful sounds out there china's and stacks and splashes and bell symbols and all kinds of really cool things so when you have more stuff set up just get it in an ergonomic spot so you can reach it easily you can have fun with it really make it a musical instrument and part of your kit you're not going to make any unnecessary movements with your body just to reach a symbol to hit it or choke it set it up in a nice ergonomic spot and you'll be good to go now where you place your hi-hat is this going to be again where it's comfortable for you but easy to get to because there's so many great things to be able to go back and forth between your snare and your hat if you play open-handed you can get your hi-hat closer to your kit if you're a right-handed player you know again it's comfort i've seen all kinds of different drummers who are uber professionals amazing players and some cross over their hands a lot more than others i like to have it sort of right in the middle so depending on what kind of groove i'm playing i can move my right hand out to make it easier to do like shuffles or i can bring it in if i'm doing something a little more groovy and funky and then if i want to rock i can just bash it right there and it's easy to hit so to quickly recap the first two fundamentals make sure you sit at a nice height set up your kit and your cymbals in a nice ergonomic fashion and you'll make drumming a lot easier on your body now let's get on to fundamental number three now this may seem really basic but it needs to be talked about how and where you hold your stick the reason i bring it up is because there's all kinds of different stick sizes out there but every stick has a balance point the perfect spot to hold the stick so it does most of the work for you so no matter what stick you play whether it's a 7a 5a 5b2b or not to be whatever it is find the right balance point i have three great stick models here today i have some promark 5a rebound fire grain sticks i have some minol standard 5as and i also have a pair of vader classic 5a's sugar maple now all of these sticks feel totally different because they're different brands but they all have different weights the fire grains i think are the heaviest of the three brands to find the balance point it's never going to be way back at the end of the stick it's never going to be way up at the front either it's usually about three quarters of the way down a way to find the good balance point is to grab the stick in your first knuckle of your first finger and the flat part of your thumb and i'm just looking for a spot where the stick kind of goes back and forth easily if it's too far back the weight's going to be forward it's not going to bounce back if i'm holding it too far towards the tip of the stick the back end is going to fall back so find that spot roughly three quarters away from the tip down the stick grab it lightly and then just let the stick kind of go back and forth in your hand that's basically where it is now you can adjust it and fine tune it once you like the feeling of the stick but that's about it when i grab this minol 5a it feels a little bit heavier towards the front than the pro mark so my balance point is going to be just a little bit different still roughly in the three quarters of the way down the stick range but you fine tune it again first knuckle flat part of your thumb grab the stick and let it sort of bounce back if it's not doing it nice and easily just kind of adjust your hand back and forth until you find that right spot this stick i'm finding is a little bit closer to the tip than the pro mark now when i grab the vader 5a sugar maple sugar maple is really a lot lighter than hickory like a ton lighter so since this stick is a lot lighter i actually have to go back towards the butt of the stick a little bit more to find the balance point for me so again first knuckle flat part of my thumb and just kind of go back and forth until the stick feels like it's moving on its own and that's about it now when you find the balance point no matter the weight of the stick it's going to be a lot easier to play then at that point just experiment on the size of stick you want if you like big beefier sticks like 2b just find the balance point you're good to go if you like thinner sticks like 7a again just find that point and you're going to be ready to rock or jazz or bebop or funk or whatever kind of music you like to play now i'm going to get into a little bit of playing here on to fundamental number four what i'm going to talk about now is not a deep dive because this is really a lifelong pursuit when you get into hand technique and the playing part of your drumming but it's something we can talk about now to get into especially if you've never heard about this technique before the molar method it has to be in my opinion the most important hand technique there is out there for your hands it's how you play fast how you play loose and how you can kind of get all around your drum kit easily the molar method comes from a drummer way back in the day in the 20s named sanford mohler he made up this technique he taught this technique to a drummer named jim chapin and jim for many many years would basically travel around the world teaching kids at clinics and master classes and one-on-one lessons about the molar method and it's a technique that really changed a lot of drummers lives and their playing now there's a few different grips on holding the stick like i was just showing you with the first knuckle on the flat part of your thumb that's an easy way to play the french timpani method which is holding your sticks closer to the center of your body and playing it like this and using a lot of fingers it's what tympani players use quite often [Music] this way you can start utilizing your fingers back and forth like this get nice and fast that's basically no wrist at all it's good for some things for sure it's not really a great rock technique but it doesn't matter it's good to learn anyway the next place you would go from the french grip and technique would be go to the german technique where you kind of just roll your hands out a little bit and your wrist instead of turned into your body like this are turned over and the top part of your hand is basically facing the ceiling [Music] now that way you're utilizing pretty much only wrists it's all here it is good practice to get your wrist moving back and forth like this but it's not the full it's not the full monty in a full boat you don't you're not getting everything in just that grip and just that technique that's where molar comes in molar came up with this technique to where the stick is doing most of the work starting from this quote german position where your hands are a little bit out maybe like 45 degrees at an angle you give a little bit of a whip motion you're starting from your shoulder into your elbow down into your hand this little bit of whip gets the stick started folding down my wrist like this and pulling out my elbow from the side of my body a little bit now i'm going to do it in an extreme fashion here to show you folding down the wrist elbow out and then whip from your shoulder all the way down you get a nice strong accent that way as well [Music] same way on the left side that's the first part of it now we're going to talk in triplets here triplets are the easiest way to go back and forth in your hand so one two three one two three one two three one two three just like that now what we're looking for here is three beats with one stroke so you have the whip to get the thing started you have a tap and then an upstroke now an upstroke is not where you lift the stick up like this it's basically the part of the stroke where your wrist goes up and your elbow comes out that's technically the upstroke so you have the whip down downstroke a tap and then the upstroke with the elbow coming out and the shoulder [Music] when you speed it up the stick starts doing all the work for you and when you get a little bit faster you know you're not making the giant motion with your arm really coming out like this it's a lot smaller and tight and compact inside your body now to get the triplets going back and forth in your hand so you can start utilizing your left hand as well just going one two three one two three right left right left right left with a little bit of whip motion back and forth let the stick move it makes playing faster so much easier now if you're a traditional grip player it's the same sort of thing find your balance point your stick your whip motion still starts with a little bit of elbow out from the side of your body elbow comes out starts from your shoulder and down whips down then you have the light tap stroke which is the second hit and then the up stroke where your elbow comes out stick hits the head and that's the three strokes so three for one that's what we're going for here you definitely don't have to stay with only three strokes three for one you go four five six and a lot more with the molar method but this is a good place to start now one last thing i want to talk about here is how to hold the stick when you're playing finding the balance point i was talking about the first knuckle and the flat part of your thumb once you start playing faster speeds you're going to be utilizing your middle finger a lot more and your ring finger a lot more to control the stick your first finger is really holding around the second knuckle now okay so it's okay to go from here this is like your french timpani method first knuckle flat part of your thumb and then when you get into molar and you start whipping and playing faster you're kind of gripping the stick a lot more okay then to utilize it all the way around start getting your fingers involved as well so you bring in a little bit of the french timpani and the german all together into the molar method once you start feeling this you get this flowing motion that kind of has this roundness to it where it starts from the snare drum goes up through your chest your shoulder your elbow and back down to your hand it's this kind of round thing and then you can start taking this all around your kit the roundness and the flow that molar brings to your drumming is amazing to recap for you this is a quick overview of what the molar method is for me it's been a lifelong journey to try to learn this method and to utilize it in my playing every day once you start feeling it and you get into the nuances it's really magic so i strongly encourage you to get with your local teacher to learn more about the moeller method and do a lot of research online there's great videos there's great old videos from jim chapin himself teaching the molar method and just to listen to him talk and to see how his hands work is a beautiful thing and all kinds of other great drummers know how to do this well too so go out there and research it and bring it into your own playing you'll be happy you did now on the fundamental number five let's quickly talk about your feet because drumming is hands and feet of course i'm going to focus mainly on my kick drum foot so if you're a right-handed player it'd be your right foot if your left-handed player your left foot or open-ended player it could be either foot because you guys are all ambidextrous and stuff the key to having good foot technique is to have it all based around your ankle the ankle is the pivot point of the whole stroke sort of like how molar has the whip motion to get the whole thing started your ankle is the whip motion that happens in your foot technique this works whether you are a heel up player or a heel down player i play most of the time with my heel up it's just how i've always done it and it works for me but again this works no matter what style you like to play now something i learned a little bit later on in life which was unfortunate for me because kind of i think it held me back a little bit in my kick drum speed and dexterity was that i was not using my ankle in the right way and i was starting to get some pain in my shin in the front you should never feel pain in the front of your shin while you're playing the drums if you start feeling like that you know your technique is not good and there's something that needs to be changed there all of it stems from your ankle and up into your calf that's where everything happens you are going to let gravity do its job starting from your hips down your thighs and then down into your foot but again all pivoting from your ankle and this is another good reason for sitting a little bit higher in your chair so gravity can do its job down into your foot pedal so let's talk about that pivot point in your ankle what i like to do is lift up my ankle and then whip the back part of my heel down into the base plate of the pedal that gives it a whipping motion and pushes the foot plate down and makes the beater go forward [Music] it's a little bit hard to see and nuance especially with just one stroke at a time [Music] once i start playing a little bit faster gravity's taking over and it's a motion that's just doing it on its own really and what i'm feeling is the heel of my foot going down with the whip of the ankle and doing this kind of nice rolling wave motion think of it as a wave in the ocean kind of going back and forth that's the goal of what you want your foot to do and it'll make your kick drum playing a lot smoother and easier especially when you get to really fast tempos and you want to do fast doubles and stuff [Music] let me talk about that double real quick what i'm doing here is that first motion is the whip i'm back on the foot plate a little bit for the first stroke and then the second stroke for the double moves a little bit forward on the foot plate i find this an easy way to get nice fast and precise sounding doubles one last fun technique to talk about with the foot is the swish technique where you go back and forth you're still utilizing your ankle but your foot is moving back and forth left to right in a constant motion and it keeps the kick drum just going and going and going [Music] it makes it fun to play double bass like this that's a fun way to play and if you can practice that with a nice simple beat on top in your hands it gets to a point where you forget what your feet are even doing it separates your body from the top half to the bottom half the last thing i want to mention for foot technique is in your hi-hat same thing goes all in the ankle starting from your hip down your thigh down the back of your leg your calf into that ankle you're still going to get a nice whip motion but this also helps when you want to feather the hi-hat [Music] you're whipping your ankle your heel goes down to the foot plate and it's pushing the pedal down and opening the hi-hat symbols and if you get that wavy flow motion like i was talking about you can get a nice feathering effect on your hi-hat it's a lot of fun actually and there you go everybody five fundamentals that will help you in your technique and make you a better drummer so you can play drums for an awfully long time drumming is a physical instrument so you want to do the right thing to take care of your body so when you become older you can still have fun on this fantastic instrument so set up your drums in the right way sit at the right height hold the stick in the right spot utilize the molar technique which is the best get your ankle working in your feet and your drumming is going to take off to a whole other level thanks for watching everybody make sure you like comment and subscribe click right here for more videos just like this one or go to sweetwater.com for all your music instrument and pro audio needs [Music] you

Channel: Sweetwater

Views: 60,847

Keywords: Sweetwater, cat:drums, lesson

Id: pcw_Ju_s480

Length: 23min 3sec (1383 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 22 2022