David

When I watch Harry Miree and bruford using cable hats to open up the kitI do find it a very attractive approach.  Maybe in the future... 

I have crashes on both sides so I use either hand when I splash, smash or crash.  It is natural now but you do need get used to it so I used to practice to Mr Copelands explosive accented fills.  On some eKits you can crash the ride but I think t requires a 3 zone cymbal.  I don't think it matter which hand is on what as long as it works.

27 minutes ago, Eyal said:

@David thank you.

I tried listening to your video and was very impressed by the your moves arround the kit 👍, though could not hear your voice (I know you know it 🙂).

Does it mean I need to remember per fill how to start it?

Do you have problems when it comes to jamming and improvising a fill?

 

When you learn a fill for the first time you work out how you want to start it by knowing how you want to end it, specially rolls around the kit.  So if you are going round the kit left to right and want to play 4 strikes on each drum you would start with your right hand so the next group of 4 starts on your right hand, rlrl - rlrl etc.  If you are playing groups of threes you might want to start with your left hand like I was moving from the snare to the floor tom, lrl - rlr each time your free hand is in the right place to move to the next drum and back.

That's how I practice which is different to when I play and improvise, then it's a bit more free and sometimes I get it mixed up a bit but generally the more you practice the more instinctive it becomes and your brain connects the dots.  I am not thinking about sticking when I improvise but if  am learning a specific fill such as say 'In the air tonight' then I practice the sticking and shape of the fill dynamically so I am used to playing it. That way no mater if I have a small kit or a large kit I can play the fill. This all takes time to hardwire in the brain, I've re-engineered how I approach everything while being a SDS, made a huge difference to my playing.

When practicing fills I don't think it matters how your kit is set up or if you play open handed, it really is about knowing where you are going next, what the destination is.  I'd suggest all my fills have been open handed.  Where open handed playing really pays off is when you want to play a tom pattern with your snare hand as it removes the obstacle of your other arm.  When I play a Latin beat with a tom pattern I typically play it on my ride so my left had can move between the snare and the tom.  If I try to play the same rhythm using my HH then my right arm can get in the way.  You don't et that issue with open handed playing.

I'll try and shoot a better video of it and keep it short 🙂 

@EyalI think it depends on your destination. So playing time as you are left handed you'd lead with you left however playing a full will depend where you are going on the kit and where you want to finish. It's what I was trying to explain in the video... Badly.

1 minute ago, Bob said:

I really like what I saw in the video @David.  However I could barely hear your mellifluous voice.

Yep, I need to stop messing about and get this set up right... after I just change the height of my snare and add another tom... and....... 😅

I tend to think of Leading hand and dominant hand as 2 different things and I'm trying to break the hold of my dominent hand.  I shot this earlier to try and explain what I mean, it's not great but hope it does the job lol

Will I ever finish the room... no 🤣

I used to use plastic tipped sticks a long while back, they do have such a bright sound on cymbals but I switched to Barrel tipped after I had multiple ocassions where tips flew off.  I'm talking 40 years ago. I think it also sounds more condensed if that makes sense and I think wooden tips give a little on impact but plastic ones don't.  I think wood is kinder to the cymbals and heads as well, but thats just my opinion, no idea how true that is.  

I have played with heavy timbale sticks which have no tip to speak off and I loved those, just sounded different again, like when you switch the stick around and play with the but... great on the ride bell.

I was looking for some video of Vinnie and came across this very special concert when the Bataclan in Paris opened after a terrorist attack the previous year. 

For more info about the event: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/13/sting-reopens-the-bataclan-in-emotional-gig-a-year-after-paris-terror-attacks

6 minutes ago, Kirstin said:

If you haven't noticed his tuning, one or more of his drums will be tuned to the dominant, another the tonic, another the subdominant, etc., etc. until his kit becomes almost a chord.  I think one of the coolest compliments I've ever heard of him is, "he was the first drummer to make the drums sing."

Everyday is a school day, love it.  I really need to get into basic music theory, this is so interesting 🙂 . Claus is a musician/scientist who has so much feel.  I to love drummers with great feel for the music they play.  Mitch Mitchell played so well off Hendrix, Copeland cooks a groove so hot with interplay, Collins is an orchestra on early Genesis recordings...I still get excited when I play good times bad times and Bonham kicks in...  they fit like Ringo/Lego into the music they play.  And then there's Jazz... everything, all time all at once.

8 hours ago, Kirstin said:

There's always a delay going into his fills that is part of his signature sound. He says that delay is there because he needs that half beat to get his right arm out of his way so that he can imitate the fill with his left. 

I'm not so sure it is exclusively a problem for someone like him who plays crossed over. I have noticed that when I come off the HH with my left hand, I sometimes have that delay and sometimes I don't. I guess next time I am on I will take a hard look at what I am doing that results in a missed half beat or no missed beat. I'll get back to you.  Ni ni. 

This is brilliant and I think it might explain why Ringo fills contain natural/beautiful tension and anticipation and instead of trying to drill it out of itself he accepted it and the rest is history.  He is a phrase-god 🙂  TY @Kirstin

7 hours ago, Kirstin said:

P.S. I should also mention, and I also think I said this before, I don't like the old fashioned linear around the kit fills. I like staggered fills that dance around the kit with a lot of single sticking, and back beat fills that also use a lot of single sticking. Which are a whole lot easier to adapt to using either hand. So I can't say as I have come up against the problems you are having. And I think by the time I do push myself into learning those linear types of fills, I'll have enough facility with the right hand that they won't be any issue.

Also watch this guy.  He's my number one guiding force in methodology, because he has so many videos where you can clearly see what he is doing.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y9Vk7VeSog 

 

 

I agree with this, I think he linear pattern round the kit fills are really only a facility builder and in certain cases a dramatic statement in a song.  @Kirstin have you watched the KH session we had on here, it's great, link below. The video you link to is brilliant and, for me, it's more to do with his musicality than speed or facility, his phasing and the fun he is having isn't based on technical pathology but the output.  It's interesting discussing this and then watching the video and seeing how he plays... his approach is of a complete instrument, his hands build phrase and often the ostinato planned by his right hand as well as his left, it's not about patterns much more about phrases... I hope that makes sense. I am trying to do things like this in my solos which are pretty bad atm, but I'm deliberately reaching beyond my skills. 

I've also been very married to sticks and I want to break that, I love the use of the hand on the head Claus does.  I want to break my habit of always having the same thing in both hands, next solo I post I might try that, see how brave I am 🙂 .  It doubles or triples the amount of colour/voice you have under your hands.

https://www.stephensdrumshed.com/courses/qa-calls/3-8-22-qa-w-claus-hessler/

2 hours ago, Eyal said:

@David this is a very useful insight. Thank you!

I wonder if these transitioning can be improvised or the drummer actually chunks them and prepare them ahead of time in practice time.

From my point of view once you get used (practice) to inserting a double stroke inside the fill and it becomes a tool, then improvisation van happen as you use it subconsciously.

Sometimes I'll want to reverse the direction of a fill and ad a dbl stroke to reverse it say 16th note fill over 2 bars

BAR1 SNARE: RLRL; TOM1: RLRL; TOM2: RLRL TOM3: RLRLRLLR TOM2: LRLR; TOM1: LRLR; SNARE LRLR

OR

 BAR1 SNARE: RLRL; TOM1: RLRL; TOM2: RLRL TOM3: RLLR TOM2: LRLR; TOM1: LRLR; SNARE LRLRLRLR

So I insert a double stroke to travel back through the kit. and come out on the left hand to crash the LH cymbal in this case however I would say it would depend on what cymbal I want to hit as to what hand I'll break from.  

Depending which way you are going dictates the hand you start on.  I might come off the beat and play from the floor tom.. LHLH etc straight off the snare.  It's really useful to practice transitioning a roll from say the snare to the floor and vice-versa to develop smooth movements.

I don't think open or closed handed playing affects this as there are a lot of benefits to the ambidextrous development of single/double strokes fills, the challenge I am having is makng it grove when I swap hands over 🙂 

I'd cheat and put an extra crash on the other side 🙂

2 hours ago, Eyal said:

While playing opened (left hand on HH + Crash - right hand on snare) I realized a problem.

Playing a groove when 1 on the crash there is no problem. The left hand does the work 🙂

When playing a fill with 16th notes the on the toms while the right leads - the 'a' of 4 is played by the left hand. The left hand needs to go to the crash on the 1.

@Stephen Which hand should play the crash on 1 in this case? The crash on the left side of the kit.

@Stephen can you describe what are the nuances which should be considered when playing open handed?

Can you crash with the right-hand?  Not sure I'm understanding the issue, is it the position of the cymbal?

20 minutes ago, Kirstin said:

One that I am now considering because I cannot find anyone who can give me length dimensions on the Luddy Atlas Pro HH stand I covet. I really don't want to buy schmancy and then take a hacksaw to it. (ok for real I have proper tools like a pipe cutter for this). 

They are pretty good, I've use pearl and DW ones and I have a broken DW I picked up for no money I really need to fix. I have a pipe cutter but I do love an excuse to use the grinder, going to try making some mini hats at some point 🤣

The alternative is to get a good quality cable HH and mount it where you like at the height you want. 

I have started to learn ghosting with my right hand now, playing time on my left very awkward am but It will be useful.

On 1/5/2023 at 1:40 PM, Kirstin said:

Ahhh I love it!  How great is that?

I agree about it being creatively limiting reproducing someone else's work in tribute. But definitely worth a short time for the memory.

4 years doing this was filed with experiences and stories.  Turning up 3-5 nights a week and all the travelling between gigs does teach you a lot.  And I had to sing and drum, 3-4 numbers a night which I had never done before.  If you get the chance to do this then do it, it's a great teacher (not as great as @Stephen 😉). 🙂 

Me at the front.... We played our last gig on NYs day 2000 and then I put down the sticks for a long time.

2 minutes ago, Kirstin said:

Definitely Revolver. Of the latest works by Giles Martin, this is the only one I just had to have because it is a favorite, and because  Peter Jackson was so kind as to lend Martin the means to fully deconstruct this album into separate tracks and remix it from the ground up. I was dead curious how Ringo's playing would sound now that the kit had been broken into individual parts and rebalanced.

Yes, shame that tribute bands generally stick to the stage performance material. When I am good enough I wouldn't mind joining one for a time. Just to co-exist with my most favorite drummer for a while. There used to be an all woman tribute band around here, but not seen them for a while. I used to joke with them that if they ever needed a Jimmy Nichols "call me." 

I was in a tribute band for 4 years, it was interesting and the only time I made a living from drumming.  It's not good for the creative process though.  I was never a perfect Ringo but I kept it in his style... and the wig was not my favourite thing at all 🤣.  I loved the music and we did do some more obscure stuff but it didn't played often.  

I'll post a picture for a laugh.

15 minutes ago, Kirstin said:

The remixed "She Said She Said" really makes Ringo shine here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZOBWYHgZjw

I think this is my absolute favourite Ringo performance and this is my favourite Beatles album.  Shame we never played this in the Beatles tribute band I was in but there's time yet 🙂  

Great video breakdown of Elvin Jones style by Drumeo.

I'd say try it and see how it feels and give it a month. You might find you have to work on your feet a bit but I think you'll transition quite quickly at this stage if you find you like it.  Also if your current BD foot becomes your HH foot it's already had quite a bit of development so that might be helpful. If you find it all feels wrong and unbalance over the month you can always switch back and you've not wasted any time, it will be good for independence I would think

Looking back I wish I had made the switch when I was  starting out, as it is I'm now working on ghosting with my right hand as an exercise to improve hand independence.  I will be putting a fixed HH on my right again at some point, I've had one there before and it's a great additional voice to have.