GRANTS TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

1) The samba foot pattern:

This is the basic pattern to be played by the bass drum. The next thing is to add the hi hat with the other foot. Here are some different ideas to get you started:




When you are comfortable playing the hi hat and the bass drum parts together, try playing singles, doubles and paradiddles with the hands over the top. This will be difficult at first, but will become easier in time. The key to coordination is repetition. Make sure that you start slowly so that you don’t get too frustrated and give up on the exercises.

Control over simple sticking patterns such as these can lead to a good hand technique that you can use for getting around grooves and fills on the kit.

In a normal typical drumming style, we will cross our right hand over to the hi hat to play time . In a straight 8th note groove, you will play 4 times as many notes with the right hand as you do with your left. Not only does this explain why our right hands are more dominant and confident but it can also lead to back problems as the spine is twisted.

90% of my hand ostinato's are done with my left hand. I first started doing them to build up the confidence in this limb but it also helped to open up the kit for me. Generally speaking we set the kit up with the smaller toms to the left and a size increase of the drums as we move around to the right. (This opposite to the direction of low to high notes to a piano). Because of the larger sizes, the fatter and more powerful drums are to the right of the kit. By playing an ostinato with my left hand, this helped to open up the right side of my body to use the bulk of the toms for soloing with.

Next time that your doing your local cover band gig and you get to that nice simple groove, try playing your left hand on the hi hat. If something tricky is coming up and you don't feel comfortable and you start to loose the groove, it's simple, just swap back over to your strong hand.