Moving Around the Drum Kit

by Alex
(Wales)

When i do fast fills i find it difficult to move from drum to drum (eg. snare to floor tom or from the floor tom to the higher tom). speed is not the issue though as i actually consider myself fairly fast. i seem to struggle with turning my body. what might i be doing wrong and what could i do to improve?

Cheers

ANSWER

Hi, Alex--

Here are a couple of things that may help:

1. Move your elbows out away from your body a bit more. Your arms should be free and you should not have to move your body in order to reach ANY drum in your kit. The bigger the area that you move, the slower you will be. It is your arms and shoulders which should rotate.

2. When moving from the snare to the floor tom, be sure that you begin your approach as SOON as the RH has played the last note before the move. Waiting until you need the note to star the move will slow you down. It is called "Preparation".

3. When moving from the floor tome to the next highest tom, again, PREPARE, but in addition it sometimes is possible to do a double Right on the last 2 notes of the Floor Tom so that the Left stick plays the other tom 1st. That makes it faster because your left hand is closer to the 2nd tom. So, for example if you have 2 beats of 4 16ths each, try paradiddles w/o the accent--RLRR LRLL. This is much faster and still sets your RH up to go back to where it needs to be on the next beat.

Hope this helps!

Lynne

(ps) Have you tried our Almost Free Drum Tabs? You can choose from existing tabs or custom order a guaranteed accurate tab in traditional format for any song you want.