So, once you feel comfortable holding the stick like this and you might try an exercise where you let your fingers out and bring them back in just so that you know that you’re not loosening up with the fulcrum with the thumb and the first finger then it’s time to hit the drum. Again, anybody can hit the drum. All you have to do is drop the stick. But you want to do it again efficiently so that you don’t use more energy than you need. Think of a single stroke is being a quick motion down to up, down-up like this. I’ll hit the drum [Demonstration].
This is our ideal stroke because it uses the least amount of energy and effort on our part. We’re pushing the stick down, gravity is helping us then relax the muscles in your hand as soon as it strikes the drum and the stick will bounce back. Be careful when you try this at home. But just I want to demonstrate the rebound properties of the drum [Demonstration].
As you can see the drum wants to propel the stick back. So let’s use it to help us. Start with your stronger hand and I’m going to assume that your right hand so you can reverse everything that I say if you’re left handed. But start with your wrist fairly low. Again, straight up your arm. Bend your wrist back slightly and then stroke down-up. Say down-up as you do it, so you think of it as a single word and a single motion. Down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, when that feels very comfortable do it with your left hand. Down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up and that’s the basic way we want to hit the drums.
I say the basic way because there are many, many other ways we might want to strike the drum to get different sounds and because we’re in a three-dimensional environment once we start working on the drum set. But if you have this basic way down, then its going to be very effortless as you move around the drums and you’ll be able to alter as you need to. So this is the first step.
Generally, through this lessons get really good at each step before you move further. Don’t go to the next clip until you’re really comfortable with what we’re doing in this clip. The motion again is all by the wrist. We’re not going up and down with the arm. Keep your arms relax, elbows to your side. Use your wrist down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up. Do it slowly and precisely so that you can feel and think about what it is that you’re doing and you can monitor yourself to make sure nothing is going wrong. It will eventually get into your muscle memory. In other words it will become a habit to do it right. And that’s when you can really move forward on the drum set.
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