Christine

I was watching Johnny Cash at Montreal the other day and spotted that his drummer, WS Holland, was playing open-handed. In his case he's moved the hi-hat over to the left so he's still playing with his hands the 'right way' round. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmSObDRLIfs It's a great gig and the rhythm section seem to be having at least twice as much fun as the rest of the band 😉 Also I've also update the pics for this club too.

Any cymbal will crash if you hit it hard enough 😉

When I moved my ride I had a similar problem with 'Shook me all night long". But I just decided to hit the snare with my left hand 🙂

Thanks @Kirstin, that's really helpful. I don't fancy sawing bits off my stand as there is a 100% chance I'd make a complete mess of it! But the VH-14D does look lower than my VH10 and there is space underneath for the anti-rotation collar. @DavidI'd never even heard of a cable hi-hat mount so I'll look into that at some point too, thank you.

My e-kit came with one of those terrible disembodied hi-hat pedals and I quickly upgraded it to a Roland VH-10, which is a cylindrical box that sits on a normal hi-hat stand with the cymbal above (see pic) - so it goes up and down 'properly'. That's much nicer but it never seemed to go low enough for me. I have the hi-hat stand as low as I can get it but ideally I'd have it lower if I could - only a few centimetres though. I'm planning to upgrade to the new VH14D e-hi-hats soon (cash permitting) and hope that those are thinner than the cylinder and allow me to lower the hi-hat top. Playing open-handed means I don't need to go above my snare hand so my left arm wants to be almost perfectly straight onto the top cymbal and that's quite low even with the stool at a good height for the kick pedal. I haven't seen any issues when playing an a-kit so I'm hoping it's just the 'cylinder' being a nuisance. How low do you have your high hats?

I love this idea. I'll create a topic in the club for inspirational open-handers

One of the biggest problems I had when I got to Basics of Groove was having the ride on the opposite side of the kit, so when switching between hi-hat grooves to ride grooves I basically had to learn everything twice. I've now moved my ride over to the left (I'm right-handed) just over the hi-hat (which is low, because - open handed 🙂 ) and it works much better. I do slightly miss having a crash on my left though. But with limited space and an e-kit it's the best I can manage at the moment. What's everyone else doing here?

Beautifully positioned for the photograph too 😄 I have a pair of pink Vic Firths on order - mainly because I need some wood-tipped sticks for when I play the acoustic kit at the rehearsal studios and I know if I get pink ones they won't get stolen by any of the boy drummers ...

Slightly more off-the wall, Erskine did sterling work on Mark-Anthony Turnage's "Blood on the floor". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m-CVyr9Mg0

Possibly the "Roger Federer" of drumming, he makes it look like he sees the work faster than anyone else but it's all in the cause of the music. He's beautiful to watch and awesome to listen to. Porcupine Tree's awesome Anesthetize, The Pineapple Thief. Gavin almost rewrote a lot of their songs when he joined in 2017 so great effect showing what a great composer he also is. King Crimson. I'm not really a fan of Crimson - even though I am in awe of all of it's component parts - so I'm not sure if this is representative of them or not 😉 but hey, three drummers! Gavin also has several solo albums (which are much jazzier, reflecting his roots), and books - which I'm too scared to read just yet.

I'm currently learning Stevie Nicks' "Edge of Seventeen" and, for some reason, I often end up crashing the sticks together on the hi-hat and losing one. When that happens I have to just grab any old stick from the bag and carry on playing with it. That can get challenging if it's a heavier stick but I suppose it all helps muscle buildup 😉