Sorry your browser is not supported!

Hey.
I have a question for all you drum players,

I've been composing some music on my Fantom XR, and when it comes to drums, I just hate having to edit my drumlines on the sequencer.
I mean, I can do it with the keyboard, but it just doesn't feel right having to "finger" percussions. So I got the idea on learning to play the drums; I did a little bit of "air drumming", and found out that my left hand more or less depends on the movement of the right hand. Funny, 'cause I can do fine playing a keyboard. Anyways, how do you achieve hand independence?
Which would be the best way to learn drum playing?

Repetition and lots of it.. For the hands, you'll need to build motor skills to control the sticks initially (Ie Grip). There are different aspects of the stoke also, from forearm, wrist and finger control. So were fine tuning the large to small muscle groups. Initially though, it tends to be easier to work on the large muscle groups first then as your grip/ ginger control improve the motion become more refined.

One of the first patterns we look at simply playing even subdivisions. 1/4 note to 1/8 note to 16 note. With a variety of stickings. Ie (Singles RLRLRLRLR, the reverse LRLRLRLR etc, Doubles RRLLRRLLRRLL, then reverse LLRRLLRRLL etc) and single handed. Once you get a handle on it, try triplets also.

It's important the reserve the stickings to built strength and control of your unnatural hand. Otherwise it'll become entirely dependant upon the lead hand. The same applies to your feet. Generally we'd play (such as the stuff above) a 1/4 note pulse with the bass drum or high foot foot (or combination) to increase the challenge and help us remove the invisible stings (puppet theory) between your feet and your hands.

Beyond that, another approach is to layer patterns over each other. So the right hand might player 1/4's while the left moves through the 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 then swap over. Then try the exercise with the right playing 8th notes, if left playing 1/4, 1/8 to 1/16. reversed the stickings etc etc. Layered patterns like this are also very useful exercises for developing flams,

This is effectively a permutation study, so picking up a snare drumming book that gives a good selection of sticking permutations can be invaluable (Stick Control, Ted Reeds Progressive steps to syncopation). Boring as hell though

dont forget para-diddles


do
RLRR
LRLL
loop

Awesome, thanks for the replies.
I might be buying an electronic drum kit. I know, they sound terrible, but right now that's pretty much what I need, since the integration capabilities with other midi devices.

Try the Traps E450. It resembles a real drum kit, i.e. accurate size and placement of drums. A pretty good learning tool as you will be able to transfer to a real kit easier.



Everybody loves paradiddles

and the double para-diddles and the triple parra-diddles, and the para-diddle-diddles, and the flam para-diddles.

for the sake of not naming every rudiment, i'll just stop there

not if you get a good set. I have been an acoustic drummer my whole life and would never have considered an electronic set. In 2006 I was blown away by the stuff from Roland and ended up getting a set, the V-Stage. Its like playing a real kit because the heads are mesh skins on a shallow shell, using a real drum rim with tightening lugs and all. All of the triggers (drum heads and cymbals) are position and velocity sensitive like a real set would be. you should check out roland's sit for more info and video demos. As far as sound goes, the packaged sounds are amazing and the fact that you can mix and match any type of kit or cymbal pieces with each other, then edit properties of the pieces individually, then save it as a kit is very cool, its virtual hardware at that point.

Its a high end kit but I heard the prices have come down a bit so it might be worth looking into depending on your budget. the lower end electronic kits that are basically solid blocks with pads will not be as good, and will not mimic a real kit at all, at which point youre better off with a real kit.

my 46 cents