Leading hand guidelines

[Eyal]

While playing open handed the left hand plays the HH and the right hand plays the snare.

I also moved the ride to in between the HH and the crash so the left hand always plays the ride.

This is pretty native.

When it comes to playing fills deciding in the leading hand is not stright forward to me.

There are fills which is native to lead with the right hand while there are fills which the left hand 'wants' to lead.

Are there any guidelines?

Maybe there aren't guidelines?!

@Stephen is it possible to have one lesson which summarizes all the nuances when moving to play open handed?

Maube other drummers who play open handed have more ideas of topics for such a lesson 🙂 

[Kirstin]

2 hours ago, Eyal said:

Maybe there aren't guidelines?!

Of all the research I've done and hours of watching what other established pro OH drummers do, this question you pose seems to be the case. 

Claus Hessler, Dom Famularo and Simon Philips are the only ones I've ever seen talk extensively about OH. All three press that ambidexterity is the core of full OH. There's more to it than just uncrossing your HH hands. But I only have their word for it because the other established pro OH players like Billy C. and Lenny W. haven't ever said much about it. I've just had to observe what they are doing on stage. Everything I have seen shows they aren't bothered by handedness. 

The only self-professed OH player who still plays with a solid dominant hand is Harry Miree.  But he is the first to admit he is still very new to the concept and trying to figure things out.

I am still only brushing the surface of Claus Hessler/Dom Famularo's book about Open Handed drumming.

Best I can offer you is my own insights over the past year as I gained experience with OH:

Stage 1: (Month 1 through 4) I obsessed about my left hand being lead, because I'm a lefty. I always pushed to play fills left handed even when right handed made more sense some of the time. I actually lost sleep over the question because I obsessed the problem too much.

Stage 2: (Month 5 through 8 ) By this point I was playing fills mostly right handed, but having to paradiddle a lot to navigate myself back onto a left lead. Ok GREAT! I'm heading for the big time. 

Stage 3: (Month 9 and 10) Light bulb comes on. I am paradiddling too much. I go into a self doubt spiral about my methods and realize I've missed the point that Claus, Dom, and Simon have been trying to impress on me. There is no left hand. There is no right hand. There are only hands. I took a time out to watch videos and read more on the subject. I locate and join the Shed and find my way again.

Stage 4: (Month 11 to current) Every fill I currently use is hand picked or doctored so it can be played starting with right or left at will. Most come from @Stephen's lessons on fills that I have adapted in some way to work for me. My goal is to dictate where I land at the end of the fill. What I land on dictates what I start with. It is opening all sorts of possibilities.

Keep pushing Eyal.  You'll find what works for you.

[Eyal]

@Kirstin thank you so much.

 

1 hour ago, Kirstin said:

Claus Hessler/Dom Famularo's book about Open Handed drumming

Just ordered these two books 🙂

1 hour ago, Kirstin said:

Claus, Dom, and Simon have been trying to impress on me. There is no left hand. There is no right hand. There are only hands.

This is a very interesting insight. It explains why a leading hand is not as trivial as it is when playing cross handed.

[Kirstin]

@Eyal I don't have the second book yet, but I think you will like the first book a lot.

As for lead hand being trivial in one style or the other, I think that depends on the drummer. There's no real difference between the styles except one supports a dominant hand, and the other makes it awkward to maintain a dominant hand.

[Robert]

Stephen talks about Gary Chester's book The New Breed. I've read the beginning of it and started working on some of the lessons. His ideas on splitting the kit are helpful for me. It takes some getting used to, but I like the way it's coming together.

[Kirstin]

11 minutes ago, Robert said:

Stephen talks about Gary Chester's book The New Breed. I've read the beginning of it and started working on some of the lessons. His ideas on splitting the kit are helpful for me. It takes some getting used to, but I like the way it's coming together.

Splitting the kit is what I do most of the time but I learned it from watching Claus Hessler and listening to some of his lessons on drumeo. The New Breed is on my to-do list, eventually. I'm working on three other books of interest at the moment. 

It is a nice way to compartmentalize what you are doing with either hand.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Kirstin

[Robert]

2 hours ago, Kirstin said:

Splitting the kit is what I do most of the time but I learned it from watching Claus Hessler and listening to some of his lessons on drumeo. The New Breed is on my to-do list, eventually. I'm working on three other books of interest at the moment. 

It is a nice way to compartmentalize what you are doing with either hand.

I've only seen limited stuff from Claus, but I understand he has some good stuff. He's on my to-do. 😉 What I have seen, he's a great resource.

[David]

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 🤣

[Bob]

13 minutes ago, David said:

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

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

[David]

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....... 😅

Edited March 12, 2023 by David

[Kirstin]

1 hour ago, David said:

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 🤣

You illustrated exactly what I was trying to explain above. If it is logical lead with the right hand, then lead with the right. If it is logical to lead with left, do that. It took me near a year of OH for it to suddenly dawn on me that I'm not locked in, either way and my evil south paw doesn't have to matter unless I want it to.

I also consider lead and dominant separate and was trying to use them specifically to make my point that OH makes it awkward to follow a particular dominant hand but crossed over isn't a limitation on choice of lead hand either. 

Edited March 12, 2023 by Kirstin

[Kirstin]

Sorry @David I edited the post out from under you LOL.

[Kirstin]

BTW, not to hijack this post, but a quick aside related to the last student social talk...  @David @Bob @Richard L

I successfully sold my Roland. A church contacted me 10 minutes after I put it up on Craigslist and 20 minutes after the Church agreed that no, they don't want to pay 9k for a new VAD707, and directed their sound guy/drummer to look for used one. Divine intersection? 

[Eyal]

Just found this article

 

https://drumhelper.com/learning-drums/open-handed-drumming/

 

It says the text below and I am a bit confused.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Lead with Your Left Hand

The biggest adjustment to make when switching to open-handed drumming is that you need to lead most grooves and fills with your left hand. This may take a while to get used to, but it’s the best way of catering to keeping your left hand on the hi-hat for grooves.

If you lead with your right hand on a fill, you’ll end up playing your left hand twice in a row after crashing, and that won’t be possible at high speeds.

Some grooves and fills will sound quite cool when leading with your right, but the general rule of thumb is to lead with your left with an open-hand setup.

[Bob]

1 minute ago, Eyal said:

It says the text below and I am a bit confused.

When I play jazz I'm almost always on the ride playing open handed as many jazz players do.  The vast majority of the time I lead with my dominant (right) hand.  I'm confused too @Eyal.  I say do what feels best for your situation.  That's probably the best guideline.

[Eyal]

My dominant hand is my left hand.

When playing fill on the toms clockwise it is easier to lead with the right hand, though my right hand plays the snare and not the HH or ride (my ride is on the left side).

[David]

@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.

[Eyal]

@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?

 

[David]

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 🙂 

 

Edited March 13, 2023 by David

[Eyal]

Thank you so much @David.

It answered many questions I had in my mind in the several days 🙂

[Kirstin]

5 hours ago, Eyal said:

The biggest adjustment to make when switching to open-handed drumming is that you need to lead most grooves and fills with your left hand. This may take a while to get used to, but it’s the best way of catering to keeping your left hand on the hi-hat for grooves.

If you lead with your right hand on a fill, you’ll end up playing your left hand twice in a row after crashing, and that won’t be possible at high speeds.

The rest of the article is solid, but I admit, this part confuses the heck out of me too. I've worked it all sorts of ways in my head and can't make sense of this. It also contradicts what he says in paragraph two of  "What is open handed drumming." I think he may have got himself turned around here and didn't catch it in editing. 
 

5 hours ago, Eyal said:

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?

I admit that my two hand fills are small and fit a pretty strict formula for the moment. Compared to other aspects of drumming, I'm still relatively new to fills, but I'm already being very mindful of what works vs what doesn't. I think about ways to do these short chunk fills properly or I think up ways to tailor these short chunk fills to me. When I get those down, I'll start increasing the size of the fills and the number of drums involved.  Baby steps.