In this article I want try and get across the idea of using all parts of our arms, hands, legs and feet in conjunction with each other to produce fluid motion within our technique – and thus improve the means to our end – musicality at the drum kit.
It may sound obvious, for example, that of course we use our hands together with our wrists. But what I’m trying to get over to you here, is that sometimes, we find ourselves learning or practicing a technique with our focus gradually landing on just one part of our limb, instead of focusing on the larger picture.
A good way to explain this is taking doubles strokes as an example.
This is what often happens – presume we are holding the stick:
We focus on our arm and hand – we begin to learn to bounce the stick
As we begin to bounce with more control – we focus on the fulcrum more as we try to improve the quality of the bounce
Quality improves, we try for more tempo – we focus on wrist movement to help increase speed
Speed improves – we focus on the back fingers to increase control and speed
Now, you might say, that’s all very obvious and correct – but the small, and very significant point I making here, is in the fact that each time I wrote down what you were focusing on, it was only ONE THING. Fingers, or wrists or fulcrum etc.
What we sometimes do without realizing it, is forget to bring together all the individual ‘lessons’ we’ve learned as we progressed – finger control, wrist movement and so on. We can end up, in this example, concentrating too much on the back fingers, or too much on the wrists.
Sometimes, we concentrate on maybe two parts of the technique, e.g. fingers and wrists. Of course, what we want is to train ourselves to use all the necessary parts of our limbs to work in conjunction to make the best of any technique.
Taking our double stroke example again, it could look like this instead:
We focus on our arm and hand – we begin to learn to bounce the stick – we begin to get more control of the bounce so we…
… focus on our arm, hand AND the fulcrum – we try to get them to work together – we begin to get a good bounce so…
… focus on our arm, allowing more movement to increase momentum, our hand and wrist to move in conjunction with that momentum, the fingers and the fulcrum to help with the snap of the stick….
So, you see how keeping in mind the gradual parts of the technique as you learn them, and fitting them in to line with the next part, you give your brain and muscle memory the chance to build a better, overall recall of how you want to play the technique.
As this becomes second nature over time, because ALL PARTS of your limbs are working together, your motion and flow will be greatly improved, and thus – you know what I’m going to say – your musicality at the kit!
I hope this makes sense to you, as it’s hard to put in to words, but much easier to demonstrate! Any question, don’t hesitate to email me .