Open-Handed Drumming: Is it worth it?
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- Опубліковано 24 тра 2020
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What are the costs and benefits of open-handed playing? Ambidexterity? Switching sides? Should a left-handed drummer learn to play on a right-handed drum set? We explore all of this and more in this video follow-up to my 30-day left-handed drumming experiment.
My 1-month lefty challenge: • I tried playing drums ...
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if you're thinking of trying open handedness, and you start liking it, lower your hihat! now that you don't have to crossover, it's ergonomically much better to have your snare and hihat at the same height and spaced a little farther apart when your arms are open.
Recording engineers will hate you tho. Too much hat bleed to. Your snare
@@matthewgarcia7376 move your hihat over to the left as well. there's no longer any need for it to be super-close to your snare
also, recording engineers will hate you no matter what. your cross stick is opposite so now they have to move the snare mic. your ride's on the left so they have to deal with that.
@@famitory actually what I'm eluding to is the harry miree setup, if you move your ride and hat to the same side your snare would be boomy (cause no bleed). I dunno jack shit about drums and economy of motion but I do know a lot about recording lol.
@@matthewgarcia7376 I also record my drums but I don't really mind because I have an absurdly dense kit (something like 30 pieces) so all of the different bleeds sort of merge together into what sounds like a pleasant spring reverb
I'm a rightie playing on a standard right-handed kit, and I became open-hand "on accident" a few years ago after I practiced playing left-handed in order to improve my balance. Definitely improved my dynamic range!
I personally hit the hi hat with my left hand for some reason.
As a guitarist who only plays drums occasionally, I cross my hands because my right hand is used to subdividing and I want that on the hi-hat. But of course that's because I don't have time to take drums more seriously, and I only play as a substitute when the real drummers aren't around
that's an interesting point which would also stand for keyboard players too; maybe that was also a factor in the evolution.
I play keys and I had never thought about this, I was wondering why crossing hands made more immediate sense to me on drums.
My teacher Thomas Pridgen has told me to start setting up my drum kit openhanded lol, it's not comfortable at first, but it's worth it!
Like... the Thomas pridgen?
@@brendonhester331 One of the many various Thomas Pridgens of the universe. Maybe it's like a Rick and Morty situation.
My teacher Vinnie Colaiuta spanked my ass the moment he saw me set my drums openhanded. he said that he will kill my parents
Chrioni Sta Ana 😭😭😭😂😂
Buy Marco Minnemann’s book “extreme independence” you’ll have all 4 limbs be able to do whatever you want and you don’t even have to focus on learning open handed it literally just comes to you when you learn independence
I've been playing drums for 50 years. About 15-20 yrs into it, I began adding open handed practice, mostly rock beats, inspired by Simon Phillips. I was also building jazz, fusion, and funk, but only working on those styles righty. As time went by more open handed abilities (such as ghosting and busier ride patterns) developed. Fast forward to today, my cross-handed righty is rusty and my open handed is not at advanced levels yet. My takeaway is that both lefty and righty need ongoing maintenance and development.
Well, if you don't have one already, get a twin hi-hat set-up, with an identical hi-hat on an x-hat floating above the floor tom right under the ride cymbal. Also consider, about 80(something)% of drumming is open, like spang-a-langing on the ride, tom rhythms, or 16th note hi-hat rhythms with snare shots on the two and four. There's really only one difference, and that's uncrossing the arms when playing snare and hi-hat.
Ironically on that last point, play that 16th note groove on the hi-hat and it's "right-handed" but drop out the hi-hat 16ths with the right hand leaving what are hi-hat 8th notes on the left hand, and suddenly it's considered "left-handed".
Not only that, but this whole idea of "weak hands" and "strong hands", "leading hands" and so on, you never see that with guitar players or bass players. Look at Randy Rhoads, Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Les Claypool, Geddy Lee, or Billy Sheehan. Which of their hands are their weak hands or their lead hands?
Incidentally, an easy way to add the locked hi-hat on the right is to add a Gibraltar floor tom leg mount on the side opposite you of your most forward floor tom (or only floor tom if you have a four or five piece) and mount the x-hat rod in the leg mount, so that the locked hats can float just an inch or so above the floor tom. (Use the clamp that comes with the x-hat for something else.) Easy-peasy and it fits right in with the set. It just literally opens things wide open.
I started playing Open Handed after i first saw Simon Phillips Live. Never looked back after that. Really helped my playing
I’m left handed but when I first started drumming I played on a right handed setup and just started playing open hand naturally. I never even realized it was different until I started talking to other drummers
I did the same exact thing
Due to COVID-19 situation goings-on on and lacks of live gigs, I dedicated myself to switched to open handed over in 2020 (but just the hi-hat) Wish me luck
I wish you success and enjoiement of the process!
Wish you well. Learn to be patient, though. It takes time for it to feel good and natural.
How's it coming along?
@@ambermcdanel1070 Hi! Thanks for checking in :) I already recorded several tracks and played a couple of shows in September/October 2020 after switch to open handed drumming. So far it's just great. My left hand is way stronger and finally I improved my French grip for left hand. I have more fun playing the drums in general, it's like open handed drumming was the missing piece to make me happy. Hard things: playing really quiet ghost notes with my right hand is a challange for me. Even when I lead with my left head I still think about right hand playing the offbeats rather than focusing on my leading hand. However I don't think I'll ever change that since I'm a right handed person and played "classical" way for 13 years.
Did you also switch the position of your ride, or do you switch back to the right hand?
I'm a lefty human but a righty drummer, don't quite know how that happened, guess I just emulated what I saw which was right handed setups. 40 plus years I've been playing righty with one bass. Recently I added a ride for my left and took out the second bass pedal that's been in the case for a like a decade. Believe it or not I found down on his luck drummer and bought his almost new DW9000 double pedal complete for $220, but never used the second pedal. So now I'm riding with my left hand, and working on double bass patterns etc. It's amazing how those two things can reinvigorate ones practice habits. I guess my right ride hand will always be more articulate, but playing lefty ride, brings totally different results, even when I try to mimic one to the other. It's a blast to be able to just switch, and the HH is set up perfectly for either open or crossed playing, it's very versatile. It's really amazing to have this much fun with new directions on the drums, just more fuel to power the passion. Playing drums is like getting to go on the rollercoaster as many times as you like with no lines.
Another benefit of learning open-handed is if you get injured, you can still play one-handed way more effectively. I hurt my wrist and was able to do a music theatre gig 70-80% left-handed or one-handed because I spent time on developing open-handed playing. I only had to switch to right-handed mode for big fills, and on a right-handed kit, this made way more sense than leading with the left hand into a fill.
The reason for having new vocabulary with tom arrangement is interesting too but it reminds me of a Timpanist's setup. I've always wondered what a Timpanist's reasons are for crossing over. They seem to have a reason for doing it in phrases rather than changing stickings. They could arrange stickings to play it open-handed, but at certain speeds that probably would be difficult getting from one drum to another. It also makes me think of earlier jazz drummers doing cross over phrases on toms, and makes me wonder if there are phrases there that we miss out on by only playing open-handed on toms rather than working on cross over techniques as well.
For me I think the best is to use parts of both techniques. I'd imagine a whole new world of vocabulary would open up by doing cross over tom playing on a Mangini style kit, as we've seen that happen with open-handed/standard kit players like Billy Cobham and Simon Phillips. Watching Sput play grooves with Snarky Puppy is interesting too, because he seems to switch between crossed and open handedness just for the sake of changing it, or maybe that's where he is with learning open-handed playing.
I'd love to see a comparison of drummers learning transcriptions from a standard kit, on a Mangini or Bill Bruford style kit, and also learning transcriptions from a Mangini or Bruford kit on a standard drum kit.
As a person who has played a lot of timpani in my life, crossing over is mainly for 2 things; sound quality and ease of motion. Its generally not advised to do double strokes on the timpani because you need a lot of rebound to get the characteristic sound. Doubles will often mute the heads and lead to sounds you dont want. For ease of motion, imagine you are play 4 notes down 4 drums, from highest to lowest say, F D B G. Doing doubles would, first of all be an inward sweep and an outward sweep, but also the playing zone of the bottom 2 drums are ridiculously far apart and getting both correct at speed would be extremely difficult. Instead you alternate your hands and cross over. Its still not easy, but you have a much better chance of hitting the correct playing zones and getting the correct sound. Timpani is hard...
From what I've heard, the reason Sput started playing open handed was to spur his creativity and make him think differently.
@@ezramancini1491 Nah i think he injured his right hand and had to learn how to play lefty in the mean-time.
@@pur3pker131 Thank's for the input! I never was never taught proper Timpani playing in high school so I never understood the lack of sticking variation. It's tough but it's fun as hell
Dude, huge props for using the Sonic drowing music at 11:06! hahaha
Anxiety as soon as I hear it XD
Sean Reinert (RIP) was the master of incorporating his hihat foot with double bass patterns (heel+toe). I could never figure out how he did it until I realized he led his double bass patterns with his left foot. 😮
I just started learning to play open handed. I'm a new drummer, less than 2 years playing. I actually really like it, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I still switch back and forth, but I think I'm going to stick with open handed drumming going forward.
If you're thinking about it, give it a shot. It took me a few weeks before I had most of my basic grooves down, and maube three months before I was comfortable. It's really stimulating, musically and mentally, it opens up new ideas. If you can clear the hump early on, it's worth it.
I had a weird thing happen lately, too. Maybe someone else can relate:
if I learn a really challenging groove (like, I'm copying Louis Cole or something, a groove that takes me many practice sessions and many hours ), if I learned it open handed first, I found that I _also_ play it crossed, without much practice. Like, whatever my brain was doing to force my hands to play this open handed, it automatically translated back to playing crossed. But that doesnt really work the other way around. If I learn a groove crossed, it's usually easier for me to learn it... but when I switch to open, it feels a lot more like I am starting from scratch, it takes a lot of struggling to get up and going.
So that's a weird thing Ive been noticing lately: its much easier for me to move from open to crossed... than from crossed to open.
Started as lefty and was tired of turning around the drums for jams
so taught myself open handed best thing ever
Well, this has totally made me rethink what I teach and why. Definitely been going with the 'this is the way it's done' approach - but maybe that needs to change.
Good lesson for all of life too!
Left handed drummer here. Here's my experience. I started playing drums about ten years ago, just jumping on drum sets when they were around (I'm a bass player first so any drum set I would play on would be someone else's after band practice was done). Obviously they were all right handed sets, and I was able to grasp playing pretty easily except for two major things: my right foot was pathetic and I struggled to coordinate alternate sticked drum patterns (anything where the sticking was rlrl like a disco beat or a basic drum fill). Eventually I was able to get the alternating sticking down but I could never get truly comfortable with my right foot. When I finally came into enough money to get a cheap drum set, I knew that I had to set it up lefty and reteach myself how to play...or so I thought. Turns out that I was able to play left handed almost immediately, as I just had to apply my already developed skills to my dominant hand. I've gotten a little better with my right foot as well due to me learning more complex double kick drum patterns, and I can now more or less play on any drum kit I may come across, although my right foot is still nowhere near my left. I do think that there is something to be said for how you feel the music though. Even though I had started playing righty first, playing left handed felt immediately more comfortable to me. I play bass/guitar right handed, but I do everything else in life with my left hand, so I guess my reliance on my left hand made the switch on drums easier.
The simplest solution is to just use a cable hi-hat. There’s really no disadvantage to using one over a normal HH. You can still control it with the left foot and you can put it almost anywhere you want.
The modern drum kit needs to evolve away from placing the hats on the left, as it serves no purpose. Just like traditional grip has no purpose being used on a drum kit. It was invented to meet a specific need which no longer exists, unless you’re playing a civil war era drum slung to your side.
The disadvantage is the additional cost, which is substantial for many people
Cable hi-hat won't change the fact that at times you still need to play two-handed on the hi-hat. If the hi-hat is on your right side, you'll need to lead a two-handed sixteenth note groove with your left hand. Cable hi-hat basically just screwed you up there. What you can do is have two hi-hats. It's actually quite nice, of course there is the issue with cost, setup etc.
@@PenguinMcDuck or play paradiddles, so the backbeat on the snare is on your left hand. That may be a bit more work for faster tempos but learning paradiddles (or other rudiments for displaced notes on the snare) is almost a must nowadays as it opens a whole new world n drumming.
@@PenguinMcDuck Having two hi hats is the way to go. I have my main hats in the traditional setup, and my second set of hats over my floor toms. I keep those closed so I don't have to use a drop clutch to play double bass with closed hats, and use the main set for the more hi hat orientated grooves, with the option to play open or close handed.
I completely agree with everything you say, disregarding the cost of the stand. I do love to play traditional grip every once in a while though, it just feels so ... right ... playing certain genres.
I really think that playing open handed sometimes helps playing clean, because we get used to play constantly on the left hand and more syncopated/ghost notes/accents etc with the right hand. I do think this is a way to get rid of a certain amount of "dirtiness/unvoluntary flams (between kick and hands) when we get back to our crossover comfort zone.
Harry Miree, the dude himself, has a crazy drumkit! The theory behind it is connected to not wanting to cross hands and have everything on the right, while still leading with the right foot. Its really amazing actually :)
This video had vindicated me. :) I had been questioning the hi-hat placement for 30 years and was told to get over it because that's the way it is so I gave up drumming.
Watched the whole video thoroughly. Enjoyed it 👏🏻🙏🏼
Great video Shawn, I’m shown my students some open handed stuff but now i think I’ll have them do it more!
def keeping up with our channel now. dude, you're great.
Last week I showed up to my friend's house to watch his band practising. Their drummer didn't show up and so they just got me to try drums for the first time. He told me to cross my hands but as a lefty I subconsciously switched to playing open handed. Anything else felt wrong. Good to know that this made sense and wasn't just a bad beginner habit I'd have to unlearn
Great thoughts and perspectives!
This video has been exactly what I’ve been looking for as a lefty, so helpful and judgment free, and inspired me to finally pick up the drums after debating whether or not “it’s worth the time” ended up getting a rudiment pad to make sure both sides are solid before trying open handed on a kit.
I am left handed and have my kit set up as lefty, BUT, I use a cable hi-hat, and I have it placed on my bass drum top hole, where the toms should go, so that I can play open handed. It was a journey really, because as most people do, I started drumming with my arms crossed, but always struggled with it as my left hand (hi-hat) was always getting in the way of my right hand (snare), especially whe I wanted to hit hard and be loud. At some point I decided to experiment with the kit set-up. I played on a righty set-up open-handed, but my left foot was struggling so much on the hi-hat (maybe hard to believe but my right foot was doing much better on the bass drum). So I surfed the net in search of tips specifically on this subject, and here on youtube I found the "5 tips for drumming open handed" video by Harry Miree, and I got really excited. I bought a cable hihat and a double pedal and tried his tips, and I thought "that's it, that's what I was searching for!". But soon I realized that playing the kick on the slave pedal of a double pedal is just not the same as playing the pedal placed on the bass drum. It's much more unresponsive and slow, and you just can't play the same things with the same amount of effort. So I started to think, and ultimately came with the idea of the hi-hat in the bass drum hole, switching again to a lefty set-up. Now, there is a down side with this set up, and that's that you can't really play two-handed beats on it as it's too far for it to be practical. But I came up with a solution to that too, and it's simply... to use a standard hi-hat stand on the usual position!
Anyway, I talked too much.
Oh, and by the way, I'm not a real drummer. My first instrument was an acoustic guitar, when I was 10 years old I think, but never took lessons, then at age 18 I bought a bass, and with that I went to a music school for 2 years. I only started playing drums (occasionally) at age 26 when I was working on a sound engineering school; because I was the one that was closing the school in the evening, I'd lock the entrance and go in the studio and play for hours, but not everyday.
This video is really inspiring for me. Recently I've been writing some 'grooves' which would require a momentary transition from cross to open to play it comfortably and your video really inspired me to go ahead and practice open handedness more seriously Once I have my drumkit ready here. I think it's totally worth it for me regardless of how long it would take to be ready to play a live-set fully open handed. I think once I start practicing this, I'll obtain skills that would benifit my playing a lot regardless of whether I play crosshanded, open handed, right handed or left handed, and it's not like I suddenly won't be able to play the drumkit at all once I start practicing this.
Great analysis! I've been slowly working on open handed playing (just uncrossing the hands but with the kit set up in a typical way).
Shawn, I've been a huge fan of yours ever since I first heard Sungazer. I just want to tell you that I've been teaching my friends to hi-hat with their left hand and it's been going great! I'm super appreciative of all the work that goes into your videos and how you've paved my path for this facet of music. You're the G.O.A.T. and a huge inspiration
I’m a (R) handed drummer. I’ve always wanted to set my kit up like a (L) with a (L) handed double-bass pedal, remote hi-hat with the pedal next to the 1° bass drum pedal to be played with my (L) foot and use the 2°/double-bass pedal with my (R) foot as I would normally. I’d keep my 14” floor tom in the proper position, but place the 16” to the side of the snare.
Yeah, this is pretty much exactly what Harry Miree does
I’m very interested in this kind of setup, and will likely test it in the future, but I wonder how this affects the flow for metal styles of play where blast beats and fast Tom rolls are the most important
Then I’m definitely gonna have to check him out. Thanks! 👍
There is an ADVANTAGE in being able to start and stop with complete freedom from either side. Drummers aren't just doing it to be trendy, it is pushing the art further. If you have been playing awhile you will know you have a dominant side and a weak side. A leading role and a following role. If only one side knows 'leading' then your other side is stuck 'following'. Your weak side 'depends' on your strong side to start you off on patterns and that is limiting. Also if you wanted to start a pattern somewhere midway through (not on the 1) then you can do that if your weak side knows how to take the lead! :) I didn't even talk about dynamics but it's hugely useful there too.
Few years ago I decided to go the Bill Bruford route and use a centered hihat setup, with only two toms on the sides (12 to my left and 16" ft to the right, plus some eventual octoban and popcorn snare flavor options on the outside).
It is not an easy switch in terms of distribution and tom melodic vocabulary, but the center hat allows for so much ergonomic cymbal placements that I could not really play a standard drum kit with such ease now. Left or right hand on the hats is very easy and the snare/hihat movements are very natural for both hands. It makes a nice double-layer drumkits with heads at hip level and cymbals at shoulder/elbow height, very satisfying and good-looking at the price of ditching the ol' tom descent fill !
Stuff like Heikki Malmberg's kit was also an option, but I am not a fan of having large and heavy toms on rack attachments, plus it raises all cymbals quite a bit.
2 high-hat life.
@Mac Ton What do you mean by this?
Harry Mears Peepo Happy’s PFP. I don’t know why Mac felt the need to bring it up on a drum comment
@@reidgowan2670 Probably because he has fascist tendencies. He has a Punisher logo as his PFP which fascists love for some reason lol
@Mac Ton calm down you snowflake
Bi-hat
since the release of your last video i switched my whole kit to lefty lead. i am so glad i did because i wanted to strengthen my left hand and gain better coordination, bout of which are still happening. i am excited to switch the kit back righty lead and see if it was truly worth it.
After playing drums for five years, I became really frustrated with my weaker (left) limbs game, and, after watching some Yoni Madar, I completely switched my set around, and began to play cross-handed lefty on a lefty drums. After 3 months now, my left foot is decently close to my right foot, but I still struggle with playing the ride with my left hand, meaning it is far from what I can do with my right hand. I found a great joy in the process, because suddenly I began to better understand why I do some things the way I do and when I do them with my right limbs, which really opened my eyes on many of my flaws, both in execution and thinking, that I couldn't possibly notice before.
Now, 5 years is sure not a lot, but it is not too little imo, and I would really recommend switching both feet and hands if you around that time in your playing. I found it truly ground breaking for me, and it didn't take too much more work, as it was only really painful for a month or so. Maybe playing cross-handed is an overkill, I just think it looks slick, and decided to take the challenge, but I'm convinced that switching your leading limbs around is among the best things you can do in a long run, if you have time for that
TLDR
Left drummer who learned on a righty kit:
I grew up with just hats, snare and bass which made it super easy to just lead with the left. I had a phase of about 5 years or so where I wasnt playing but i was always tapping along to music in the car which left my left foot doing the bass work while playing on the seats open handed with my sticks. By the time I got back to a normal 5 piece my right footwork was horrible and it took about 2 years to get completely comfortable doing it again and playing cross over was just rough. Since then i still play traditional right handed but I notice I have interesting voicing options if i happen to accidentally switch back.
Good video, thanks!
Great tutorial
Super helpful.
excellent stuff mate. I have often wondered why more drummers dont play open handed
Hey, thanks for this video. I started out drumming just a few weeks back (played piano and guitar before), but as a lefty in basically everything I couldn't figure out why the right-handed set-up just wasn't feeling right. I've spent the last few hours practicing with a right-handed set up just with open HH and it feels great. Especially with the hh a bit lower like someone else pointed out in the comments.
Also, love the vids and the sungazer stuff. Keep it up!
I LOVE YOUR VIDEOSSS!!!!! YOU ARE SOO COOOOOOL
I’m so glad you mentioned Travis Orbin he’s such an amazing underrated drummer
Absolutely, he is sooooo good!
This comes at the perfect time for me! I've been drumming righty for about 5 years, and I just switched to a lefty setup two weeks ago. My left foot is actually dominant, and I was struggling with any kind of speed with my right foot on the kick pedal. So now I play a lefty kit open handed, with my right hand on the hihat and ride, which are both on the right! This has been incredibly easy to get used to and playing open handed just makes so much sense! Plus my kick is already as strong or stronger as it used to be when I used my right foot. I'm lucky that this works for me with almost no additional effort!
as a right hended guitarist i start to play the drums for fun and i found out i was a natural left hended on the drum kit. But than i start to realize that i was able to switch hand with no sort of problem, even with the feet. Actually i discover that on my pad set placed around me emulating a drum kit, while making rudiments.
I am a lefty that has been playing drums Fully lefty (reverse of the traditional set up) for over 6 ish years. I'll like to say i've gotten fairly good and have played in studios orchestras, jazz bands, paid gigs, for tips, for food (at like weddings and other similar venues) etc. All though those 6 years I have gone through the agonizing pain of switching the kit from left to right and then back after. i am now currently trying to learn drums the traditional way open handed and for me this requires me to switch my feet NOT my hands. I must say that switching feet is way harder than hands as your feet do vastly different things. i am about 2 months ish and it isn't as hard as i thought. weirdly the hardest style i have come across was "disco" and all the other related beats. this required the off-beat open hi-hat vibe and is way harder to re-learn for me then learning it in the first place. I also noticed for me that building power in my NEW bass drum foot (right) was much easier to develop then turning my old strong bass drum foot (left) into a much more relaxed role. These were just my experiences, I am far from being comfortable playing payed gigs righty however i have noticed that my general co-ordination has vastly improved while playing fully lefty especially when soloing as I have much more options open due to my new strong high hat foot and my better controlled bass drum.
I’m right handed and “dyslexic”. Couldn’t tell left from right naturally until I was 21. I play open and have always played that way. Because I can play articulate ghost notes with the left after years of development I prefer to play busier shuffles cross stick. It’s wierd how my right has become underdeveloped now so I’m back to the basics and busting out alternating pattern exercises like my life depends on it. First the hands… then the feet 2nd quarter 😂 the goal we all have is complete limb independence and ambidexterity… I’m a long way off but the journey and the infinite possibilities of drumming keep my creative going constantly.
ha! lefty playing open handed on a righty kit here, it's funny to see a video on this very subject. i play with my ride on the left so i always ride with my left hand, the only cymbal i have on my right is my second crash, so the only time i actually cross hands is to hit the snare and the 2nd crash together. just recently while i couldn't play my drums (they're in my band's rehearsal space and you know... 'rona) i thought about learning to perform that hit open handed. after a couple rehearsals i'm fairly confident to say that it's probably gonna take me less time than i expected, the hardest thing so far is getting the rimshots with my left as clean as with my right like i usually do. will keep you updated :D
After playing crossover fro 10 years...I switched after watching a Simon Phillips video. He made it look so easy and it looks pretty cool! I did notice right away (the first day) that it made the toms and cymbals easier to get to. If you can just keep time on the hi hat you can do some great things with your right hand. But since my left hand is dumb and my left foot is dummer than the my left hand...I have been playing open handed for The last 20 years... but I still struggle with playing smoothly! I say learn it! It will change the way you see and play the kit!
Great topic and Great video man! Thank you!
After seeing your other video I started doing it. Playing on the rim of the snare with my right hand did feel weird but I got a little used to it.
A well thought video presentation Shawn - thank you.
I'm left handed and play a right handed kit. For snare drums - To my left I have a piccolo snare and immediately in front a full size snare ... hi hat is in between; A standard set up with the piccolo tossed into the setup. I find playing the piccolo with traditional (or matched) grip and the full size snare open handed makes sense.
Okay I think I may have been ice skating up hill. I played drums for roughly 12 years. I was 100% self taught and played almost exclusively alone. I didn't tell people I played at all because when I did I got picked on (especially by other musicians/drummers in particular) a lot. I played an electric drum kit (I lived in apartments so a "real" kit was completely out of the question. Lol), left handed, open handed, on a right handed set up according to what I've learned here. Lol. Long story short I'm thinking of picking drumming up again, and your video has given me the boost I needed to really go for it again. I was pretty young when I got picked on and it really bummed me out and made me feel really alone, but I do regret stopping because of it. Thanks for posting this and showing there's a variety of ways to play and that's okay. I'm still not a "real" drummer because I still play an electric kit (still live in an apartment. Lol), but my brother learned how to play guitar so at least I have someone to play with now. ☺. Thanks again.
Well I’m sold. I am planning to learn drums in the future and I’m learning open on a righty kit and learning to switch what hand is on the snare.
A simple solution is to use a wired remote hi hat attached to the right of the kit and the pedal to the left, in the usual way of the hi hat stand location, that way you avoid crossing your arms and naturally feeling the drumming and You will save a lot of practice time to match your limbs to that of an ambidextrous. .
SUPERB VIDEO.
Excellent advice!
I've arrived at pretty much the same place in perspective....
I'm left handed, but played on right handed sets my whole life... about a decade ago, I decided to try adding open handed playing, just as you've shown. There are some other benefits I've experienced as well from this process....
Learning as a lefty did give me better awareness with the left hand for ghost notes and such....
And it certainly made learning open easier then, despite being locked in with my right for so long.
I also added a double bass pedal, and positioned it so that I can play the high hat with it, which leads to some cool patterns.
I've also added a closed high hat on the right under the ride sometimes, to make fast open handed patterns (that led with the right), which helped build independence with the left hand.
I think my favorite benefit of all this is the freedom of switching, as I still play with a lot of crossing over....
It leads to interesting new patterns quite often....
I also like to train my left foot by playing bass patterns with it, whenever I drum on the steering wheel jamming out.... old habits ....
Anyway, great video, I enjoyed it for sure
Forgot to add that I put an extra floor Tom on the left of the snare... this helps with the open playing patterns for sure
im a drummer, playing fir about 9 years at this point. i play open handed on a right handed kit. recently i did the opposite of what you are talking about (left handed on high hat), where i learned to play open handed on a left handed kit (right on high hat) and switched pedals. this was a great choice for my progression in drums, and really developed my right hand and my left foot.
SII!! estamos en el futuro, la disposicion simetrica del instrumento nos puede permitir tocar al 200%, gracias por compartir shawn.
IMO the coolest thing about open-handed playing is that now you have more voices to play with in the context of some groove in a way which is NATURAL; I believe this tremendously affects your musicality as a drummer in the long run
lol. All those faces you made while reacting to yourself are gold.
I'm a guitarist mainly, but i have been drumming for fun for quite a few years now, too. I usually cross over for grooves, because it feels like right hand picking, but I learned to play blast beats open handed. It's great for training every limb equally and also for endurance. I have also learned to lead with both hands when doing fills just for the ergonomics of hitting the snare and any cymbal at once on the 1.
In the same boat Shawn! Working drummer, learned right hand lead, watched Harry Miree, said, "dude, that is weird, dude", and started practicing hatting with the right hand. Quite a journey!
I do it Harry Miree style. I've played for 25 years. I switched a year ago and almost instantly became twice the drummer. I am also much better on a standard set now. Its world changing. If you have an electronic set you just move the pieces. Nothing extra to buy
I moved my hats to the center (Bill Bruford/Danny Carey style) about 3 years ago and I'm never going back. I absolutely hate playing on a "Traditional" kit now.
I have the same goal as you and have the same trouble you mentionned but never have i played on a lefty drums. But after seeing the first video i’m really considering it!
But i have to say i don’t consider it extra work but more like a skill set. Like some learn double bass other don’t bother and learn something else. It more a question of goals. What do you want to accomplish first?
Great serie on a not so dived-in subject. I really love your style of essai/lesson!
I play like this because Billy Cobham!Billy played lefty in 1959 when he was a kid...! Lenny White too
Great analysis, on a scale of 10 this was an 11 in terms of usable and actionable recommendations.
I like how your background music is just a drum playing
Well, being able to play the same things on the ride and on the hi-hat is a very good reason. If you tried to play both ways, you see the kind of work that requires. Instead, you can learn music, study harmony, play the piano. That will improve your drumming. I play some rythms with the left hand on the hi-hat, cascaras for salsa for example. But I often use sixteenths with two sticks on the hi-hat, and I need it to keep all my means compatible. So, mainly righty.
This is interesting. I'm a beginner. When I first started playing, I crossed over a lot. It just felt natural but I think I'm going to try open-handed.
For oldsters like me, who have been playing cross-handed for 50+ years, it's probably of limited benefit to switch to open-handed playing. I do some of it just to be a little more flexible when playing certain things.
But for anyone starting out, why not play open handed, or ambidextrously? I am somewhat surprised when I see younger monster players who don't take advantage of this ability.
From a purely ergonomics standpoint, start playing open-handed or ambidextrously. I think you will benefit tremendously.
If i try hitting the hihat with my left hand it looks like Peter Griffin trying to sit on a chair.
I started playing full lefty when I picked up the drums. Then I started getting problems in my left foot as Home Steinweiss did with his right. So I switched my kit to a righty set up and have gone open-handed. I am still learning to get around the kit this way. I didn't realize how many drummers were actually open-handed.
I'm an ambidextrous person and Id like to tell dominant handed people that this figuring out of how the heck to do things is something that ambidextrous people have to do with literally EVERYTHING on the fly. Sometimes certain actions are easier with a different hand and people still never try switching to it because of their right handed bias. Ambidexterity is a nice benefit but still requires time to be properly applied to get its full potential. I usually just tell people I'm left handed so they leave me be and let me figure out if the right handed way of doing things is really best or best for me - or best for me on that day haha. But my point is that things that are naturally designed to be intuitive for right handed people can feel pointlessly limiting for left handed or ambidextrous people.
My teacher taught me to play open handed from the beginning. He's a bassist and working musician and the things in this video were the exact same reasons he gave for teaching me this way - my ambidexterity aside. My opinion after 15 years? If you are a beginner: Just learn open handed! Switching is a different story and most didn't really get a choice because of teachers or lack thereof. There is literally no good reason unless you're only playing traditional grip and there is no real reason to play traditional except to make your boomer dad happy...which is why I started out traditional grip and quickly switched to matched and open handed. Funnily enough my teacher went to Berkeley and 15 years ago no one was playing open handed. People would tell me I was playing "wrong" by not crossing my hands or even "cheating" because of how much better it was once they saw it done with any proficiency. I've dealt with that nonsense a lot over the years and obviously feel strongly about this subject. I have argued with cross handed players endlessly and they have yet to convince me that they have done anything except make certain sounds harder to get.
I’m left-handed who learned to play guitar right-handed. When I formed a band in high school I bought a drum kit so we could practice at my house. I taught myself to play open handed because it felt comfortable. I still play and ended up playing in bands for 15+ years this way. I lead with my left hand, and I feel it’s always slowed down my transitions from drum to drum for sure. I do like the freedom and articulation I have with right hand snare hits. I’ve tried going back and learning right handed but it was tough and I couldn’t stick with it, just doesn’t feel natural. I’ve being playing guitar right handed and having a weak picking hand has always been my weakness. Play what is comfortable for YOU.
Thank you for a very informative video . I am 61 years old and have been playing a left handed set up since I was 15 . Knowing what I know now ,I would strongly recommend any left handed beginners start learning open hand on a right hand kit . Living in a right handed world it will save you a lot of aggravation down the track .
Love this video! I've always played open handed (and have only played drums everyone now and then, over a 20 year period - as an extra to my main guitar practice), but have found when using the floor tom as you might do the hats, is one hella stretch (that really needs that ambidexterity to accommodate). Not claiming any real wisdom here, but haven't yet seen that mentioned, maybe i need to scroll down a bit further.
I'm a lefty who's played this way for years but only a year ago started practicing seriously, I'd say I'm still a beginner (I've a couple videos on my channel). Switching to a righty kit is painful but it's the optimal choice. Hope I can end up in Shawn's dataset for research :)
Respond to any non-drummer/musician asking why it would be so difficult to switch with: "Try wiping your behind with your other hand"
:)
You get so incredibly used to doing things a certain way that it requires quite a bit of effort to change. But this video is very good Shawn, my compliments! Definitely makes sense to try open handed.
While I was teaching I would challenge myself to play leftie when teaching a leftie student, my hands swapped over almost no problem at all as I had already spent sometime exploring open handed playing, and surprisingly my left foot also had very little issue. The tricky part for me was controlling the hat's with my right foot.
I think I'm gonna swap my kit around completely for a while and work on that...
As I started learning drums I started learning on a right handed kit, but instinctively played open hand. After a while I switched to a lefty kit because it felt more natural but I continued to play open handed. Honestly being able to play both ways is very beneficial, it allows you to build up limb independence and come up with many new ideas. I definitely turn heads as a lefty that also plays open handed, a lot of people ask me “why don’t you just play a right handed kit not open handed” but it’s more that i always hit with my left hand first on fills and such. Open handed allows more freedom with fills, in defiantly a fan.
Travis Orbin is worth checking out on this, plays a symmetrical kit and swaps lead limbs constantly it's pretty cool
You´re awsome!!!!
I didn't realize what a God-send open drumming was in my youth because my brother always played that way. He is left-handed but plays a right-handed kit like Ringo. It is so nice listening to our old recordings with him holding down the high-hat while also doing tom fills here and there. I have encountered a problem now though in re-recording these songs without my brother since the drummers I've used do not play open-handed. Now the high-hat rhythm is lost during the simple tom fills or tom-based beats he used to play and man, it is really noticeable. 😕
I am a right handed drummer with a right handed set up who learned how to ride the HH with the left hand as opposed to the right. I have been playing this way for 28 years now and all the practice and training it took to be able to play this way was well worth the effort.
I will give my two cents here. I'm left handed and because of that I've been playing open handed since I started playing drums and I'm glad i learned it that way, tbh nowadays I can't even cross my arms without feeling awkward and bumping one into the other.
As Shawn already stated, it's more effort but it isn't double the effort. I find that the main benefits are the fact that I'm not limited to the right side of the kit when doing hi-hat grooves and that you feel extra confident when the song asks you to change your leading part from the right side of the kit to the left side of the kit. Add another floor tom to your left side and you are gold.
Excellent point about the floor Tom...
I'm lefty too, but was taught righty....
Eventually learned open, now I try to combine both...
Not sure it would benefit you all that much now though
i tried playing left hand lead(with minimal sucess) back in highschool when i went through a carter beuford phase. i got very frustrated at how i was having to take a step back at a time when i only wanted to be moving forward(and both my ego and most of my interactions with others was directly tied to my musical prowess). eventually i just got a cable hat and ran left and right side hats for a long time. i'd play around with left hand lead grooves every now and then or at jam sessions where i was playing more simple grooves. about 5 years ago i got horrendous tendonitis and had to learn to do everything with my left hand. ultimately this caused tendonitis on my left side and i bounced back and forth from limb to limb untill i got mostly recovered. the only way i could keep playing drums at all during the worst of it was left hand lead. it helped a bit that the last few years i have been practicing on a bizzaro kit that i designed as a challenge project with a budy of mine which has my belled ride on the left. now that i have more or less recovered from the tendonitis i am doubling down on practicing left hand lead and about to redesign my kit again. i figured if i don't focus on ergonomics and body mechanics now i won't make it into old age and still be able to play. I also have focused heavily on playing with a polyrthmic approach over the years at the detriment to linear grooves, so i am working more on linear grooves with my left side.
I looked at brain lateralisation (esp. the Broca's and Wernicke's areas) as part of my postgrad work and there is quite a large difference between left and right hand ‘roles’.
You’re right, of course, that you can train yourself to do most things (I also researched 10 weeks of ‘lefty’ playing after 30 years of ‘righty’).
I found that the biggest difference was in jazz playing and a swapped trad grip.
I found the main benefit to a left/right ‘leas’ was the ability to improve ‘reach’ on a large drumset.
I've been playing drums for like 13 years, started out open-handed and practised a lot, I always practised patterns and exercises both ways and definetly benefitted from that. But that being said, I still switched over to playing my hands crossed-over. One day I realized that my touch and my sound was just plain better that way. And that was after playing open handed for 6 years or so.
I'm gonna try having the hihat in FRONT of the snare.
With a remote foot pedal.
The hat height set very low and slightly overlapping the snare for better ergonomics.
But then I'm free to play the hat with either hand.
That can also make a lot of crazy grooves possible or easier :)
Please include the sound of your short drum videos :) Love your drummingg
I think another reason for crossing over is that a lot of basic rock beats have a constant kick and hi-hat pattern, which would both be played with the right side of the body, and things like snare hits and hi-hat pedal notes tend to be added more like a changing decoration on top of that pattern. It would probably be easier for most right-handed people to play the constant hi-hat pattern with the left hand and focus more on ornamentation with the right, but that would split the two main patterns between the left hand and right foot. This does run into a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem ("do most basic beats have a constant hi-hat because people were already playing crossed, or did people start crossing over to play a constant hi-hat beat?"), but I think most beginners playing now start by imitating those beats and would find it easier to keep the more repetitive pattern on one side of the body and most ornamentations on the other.
that's a good argument for using the Mangini-style cable hi-hat setup (cable hat on the right side w/ left foot pedal, left hat controlled by right foot). personally, I don't use 'em only because I don't want to carry them to every gig or fly with them on tour (I'd rather use whatever kit they have at the venue/studio for now). but yep, it does make sense!
I play open handed with the ride on the right and switch lead hands so I can still play open handed if I have to play on an unfamiliar or "house" kit, which is usually a standard right handed setup.
Hey there, as one of those drummers that started "in a cave and never saw a drummer" before I started playing, I am right handed but play left hand lead open handed on a right hand kit with my ride on the left. I think there is another reason why the time hand should be on your dominant hand - despite years of favoring my left hand, my right hand still ends up being stronger even on drums. Take a technique like moeller or push pull, both of which I use all the time on the hi hat or ride. When practicing on the pad, I will give both hands equal training, but on the kit my left hand uses these techniques much more so it would be expected that my left hand would develop beyond my right hand. Despite this, my left hand cannot go as fast as my right, however I don't have the coordination to play ghost notes or fills if I use my right hand instead, so I end up needing to change what I play if I can't reach the target hand speed on a faster beat. Of course a drummer of your level that has put in many many years of dedicated practice likely has a much higher cap on that top speed for both hands to the point where it likely isn't an issue, but I'm speaking more as the average drummer since most people considering this will likely be more playing drums as a hobby that may gig from time to time.
As for lefty lead on a righty kit, this also leads to some issues with moving across the toms on many common fills, like 2 or 4 hits on each tom. Lefty lead means that I need to cross over my right hand after it hits when moving to the next drum and I often end up clicking sticks or worse, hitting my hand (ouch!). I'll do some phrasing tricks to get around this, like phrasing 5 4 4 3 instead of 4 4 4 4 but still putting the accent on the beat, or just playing different fills, but there are times where the simple 4 on each is what I want and it becomes difficult. "reverse" fills are easier though where I start on the floor tom and go up, but again those aren't always the "right" fill for the part.
Great video, I'm glad I found this, just wanted to share my opinions as an open-handed drummer that partly wishes I just made the switch when I realized I was "wrong" 4 months into playing as the habit is much more difficult to break 14 years later as an adult with much less time to practice (and the time I do have I want to just play or record)
I'm a problem. To start with I am 62. I was born left-handed, and my first teacher forced me to be right-handed. I played in fanfare for 7 years, 4 years playing bass drum with my right hand and 3 years playing a snare drum with a start on my left hand. Today I am learning the rudiments of the drums and I will try the right handed kit and open hands. I can easily write with both hands, but I can only kick with my left foot. It is difficult to define what most applies to me, but your video gave me the following idea: I will do what my instinct indicates, and try to be ambidextrous.
I have my hihat more behind the snare so my arms dont cross over much, but I like the idea of rearranging the kit so I can easily play hihat, crash and ride in one group. If I switch from electric to acoustic in the future Im definitely considering this
I'm learning on my friend drum set, who is left hand. I'm right hand, so i'm playing open handed, quicking with my left foot and hi-hat with right foot. xD
I'm a lefty and I play bass (average-on-a-good-day level) and guitar (I strum about 20 different chords) as I righty. When I try to play drums on a righty set, I do open hand and use the crash as a ride, the bass drum is a nightmare. on a lefty set, I can fully show my you-don't-completely-suck drumming level.
I've wanted to play open-handed since I first watched Harry Miree do it, but I share a drum kit at church. I think it will be worth it to learn to play open-handed on a right-hand kit.