5 HUGE Mistakes Self-Taught Drummers Make
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
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hi
Excellent video. As a self-taught drummer, I held the sticks extremely tightly for far too long. In fact, learning to let go felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable at first. But now, I will NEVER go back to holding sticks tightly ever again.
Makes me happy to hear this is all helping!!! Sounds like you are making great strides! ☺️
@DimitriFantini oh damn thanks soo much iv been doing wrong as well with the gap closed 🤯
Just throwing this out there. Drum thrones (at least the good ones) as most of you know are really expensive. And money spent on a good throne would be much more fun to spend on a new cymbal, tom, guitar etc. So I went on a quest for a good affordable drum throne. The first thing I found out is any stool labeled for use as a "drum throne" is instantly more expensive than the same exact stool not labeled as a drum throne lol. The throne Ive been using this past year is a hydraulic stool with a circular padded seat that I found when I went to Burlington with my wife. It was $38! And it truly works fantastically. It's got a wide circular base like a barber chair so it's very stable without any side to side or front to back play even after a year. I'm not sure of the brand but they regularly have similar stools in stock so I'm confident you could find one if you keep an eye out and stop in to check whenever you are near a Burlington. The seat on mine is still in great shape but if it ever wears out replacing it or making a new padded seat is way easier than you'd think. As a kid in the late 90s and early 00s I helped my mom restore padded chairs that she would by at yard sales to resell or gift to her friends. But anyways back to my point. If you need a good drum throne and don't want to spend $200 then keep an eye out for a hydraulic barstool/stool at Burlington, Marshalls or TJ Max. I've seen some at all those places. Ok that's all I wanted to say. Hope it helps someone!
What a lot of people don't realise: As soon as you watch this video, you are no longer a self taught drummer.
I’M your teacher now lmao
Hahahaha why does this make so much sense
Just popped that cherry without even asking…
Funny joke but I disagree. Self teaching is research. This kind a stuff. Just my 2 cents
I’m rolling the dice hoping that I didn’t make the mistakes 😂 Let’s see!
From a drummer who's been playing 20 years (in between self-taught and with teachers) I've spent the first half of my years just practicing random, whatever I like, when I get to college I had to relearn must of my bad habits skills ( low chair ,holding sticks too tight with no gap, no heel down technique ,just could play loud,etc) , long story short when I graduated and started practicing on my own I went to my unstructured practice "routine" and noticed gaps I should've focus way more like doubles,singles, precision, endurance, timing...now I focus my routine mostly on that, if I have time then I practice linear,polyrythm and all of that stuff, if I only have 20min, is just singles,doubles, fingers, wrist,control, dinamic...Also I still struggle with my ergonomics and I work on that as well
Glad to hear you’ve made some good progress that’s great! What kind of ergonomic things are you dealing with?
@@DimitriFantini cymbals position mostly, my wrist movements hitting them are ok, is the movement of my hands/shoulders the problem
Ah i understand! You know what to do now!
Good to see that I don't make too many of these mistakes.
One "mistake" I often see and hear is that lot of drummers do Not consider their drums and cymbals as real instruments. They just hit on anything, maybe technically correct or even pretty fast. But they don't think about how they want each hit to sound.
We can hit a cymbal or a drum in so many different ways and achieve so many different sounds just by the way we are hitting them. So how do you want your instrument to sound? Which "tone" you want to hear and to bei heard?
I LOVE that you mentioned this. Articulation and “touch” is such a critical component and it’s not talked about enough. Maybe I should make a video about it?
Absolutely right!! Cymbals are very colorful if you take time to experiment using brushes or mallets, ect, & hitting different areas of the cymbals! & drums especially can be manipulated awesomely! I love trying odd setups & sound searching lol. I build my own custom gapped snare drums & w/different size top & bottom snare shells like 12" top half & maybe 13"or 14" bottom shell for some crazy unique sounds & tunings!! It keeps things uniquely my own sound & its fun & gives me the kid in a music store feeling still @ 48yrs old!😂❤ So YES!! Drums & percussion are amazingly musical instruments w/endless possibilities!!!!
I love this!!
I think this might stem from players who play 90% of the time on an ekit that doesn’t have those same types of intonation that acoustic kits have, that’s the issue I had when I finally got to play on a regular kit
Great video! However, I disagree with you comment about not being able to play perfect quarter notes at 40bpm. I understand the sentiment behind it; that you can’t play far if you can’t play slow, but it’s not always true. People think that playing fast is difficult, but they forget that playing slow is just as hard, if not harder. There is an upper limit to what tempo someone can play at, yet there is also a limit on the slow side. If I were playing 8th notes at 300bpm, I would simply think of it as 16th notes at 150bpm. On the flip side, it is very hard to do that for quarter notes at 40bpm. I would instead have to count subdivisions to just play two notes exactly spaced apart. While speed is harder for most beginners, the slow stuff is what takes more effort in the long run.
Thanks for the tutorial! I play guitar and bass but recently started to learn keyboard and now the drums. These kinds of videos help a lot to learn how to play without paying for lessons. ❤
So glad it’s helping you!
When I was a student, I had multiple teachers teach me to keep the gap between my thumb and first finger closed. If they saw it was open they'd take their stick and jam it in the that space and knock your stick out of your hand. To be clear, they also advocated for as little pressure or tension as possible, just to keep that space closed.
I think it's interesting to see how much pedagogy has changed over the years
Good stuff! I've played for 20 years, had ONE lesson🤷🏻♂️ Gripping too tight might be my problem... I try to change my grip according to how I want to hit. Saw Chris Dave play super fast and super light with one hand, it looked like he was gripping his stick TIGHT, like squeezing it, and I figured that gripping your stick super tight you have absolute control to play VERY quiet, but you gotta use alot of force, like gripping a hammer and just slighty touching the nail, no rebound at all. I figured if you keep your first fonger lenghtwise on the stick, you can kinda control it with your finger. I gotta train to be looser and throwing the stick and letting rebound happen. It's not like always grip the stick like a gorilla lol
"YYZ = TOILET" man, that hit hard LMAO
someone noticed 😅😂
In what way is YYZ a toilet?
Great advice. Especially important to start the rudiment or phrase slowly and precisely. Increase speed gradually making sure the subdivisions are even and crisp. You have to go slow to go fast. I was once told.
Spot on. This is very well done.
Thank you so much!!
@@DimitriFantini : You’re most welcome. This is something everyone needs to be aware of, and occasionally reminded of.
I think that closing the gap doesn't necessarily mean playing with excessive tension. You definitely can play with your thumb and index finger touching together without being stiff and you can enjoy many advantages like having total control of soft dynamics with extreme consistency (although moving around the drumset can be tricky). every grip has its own way of helping us express ourselves. 4:30
you are right it doesn't necessarily mean excessive tension, but for 9 out of 10 self taught drummers it does. it's an extremely common subconscious thing that happens!
@@DimitriFantini unfortunately it's very common and that's why many teachers demonize it (including me for many years)
Excellent points. It’s amazing to watch your students develop once they understand that “technique” is really just injury prevention. Also, this list is certainly not limited to self-taught drummers!
hurricane neddy! my fav simpsons episode!
Hey whadya know!
I learned to play the trap in high school but then moved into gabber techno techniques with Korg ESX (specifically) for literally 12 years .. and now I just bought the Alesis nitro .. it’s gonna real wild .. like muppets animal WILD 🔥🔥🔥
Thank you for all these great tips and reminders :) 🤟💯
I'm 41, started at 16, & I think I've done this way old 40 rudiment RUclips playlist for almost 2 decades now. It'll also help to flip your kit entirely left handed & force your left hand to do some movement work to improve your dynamic grip tension.
Another thing that killed me was all the metal videos glorifying the thumb on top grip. I was stuck for almost 10 years. After reading Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson, that's when I left the pad & flipped my kit lefty, with my thumb so far on the side it seemed a bit below the center/flat line. The stick balance point is actually around the bottom part of my pointer finger that you can feel inside the top of your palm, like behind your knuckle.
In about 6 months, I corrected what nearly a decade could not. That weak hand has to move, & thumb on top feels so uncomfortable.
Thank you very much.
You are welcome!
The first one is definitely big, I used to set up ontop of my bass and hi hat pedals cause I was a self taught kid and didn't know any better, but the older I got the more space I learned to give myself to get comfortable. It's definitely awkward at first but it makes a difference for sure.
Glad you’re feeling the difference!!
I'm just starting out as a drummer. I'm reliably told that Buddy Rich was the greatest of all time. Should I try to learn from his technique, or perhaps Ringo first?
you should learn from complete breakdowns! Buddy never really taught his technique, and he plays too fast for a beginner to analyze. And Ringo is awesome but quite unconventional (I'm actually releasing a video about his playing soon)...
You can totally get started with my free technique guide, it's super in depth: www.dimitrifantinidrums.com/techniquefundamentalsyt
Another thing that seems like it would be super obvious, but I see SOOOOO many people doing it along with the white knuckle death grip is simply hitting the drums too hard. Every time I go to a garage/basement drummer's house and look at their kit, their heads will be destroyed and dented and usually the entire head is beat up.
Alongside loosening your grip, definitely need to focus on accuracy and not needing to hit the drums so hard. I played drums for 17 years before taking a 4 year hiatus (finally getting back into it after a breakup kinda changed my short term goals and aspirations) and I NEVER dented heads like I see so many people do. In fact, I was at GC this weekend grabbing some odds and ends to complete my newly purchased bop kit and 2 of their store display models had HOLES in the bass drums, including a $3500 Alesis Strata Prime kit.
THE DRUMS ARE NOT YOUR ENEMY. No need to beat them within an inch of their life
Oh man I feel for those drum heads 😆
Great tips. Thank you
I don’t even play drums but yet still I’m here watching this awesome advice :)
Well maybe it’s time you get started!!
Also got that golden info brother!
thanks dude!!!!
I wish I had met you in the beginning. I had natural talent from the start. I self taught using records. I was really good. Then I hit the wall. Couldn’t grow. Started taking lessons and learned the rudiments. I could then do things I couldn’t before because I was technique limited. It might seem repetitive but take lessons ASAP!
I’m your 10.000th subscriber man! Keep going!
Welcome! and thank you!!!!!
Spot on metaphors 🔥🙏🏽
thank you!
I only disagree with #2. Bozzio uses that grip and Thomas Lang. It is referred to in Dom Famularos book as the Power Grip.
You’re right that you can find some professionals playing that way. But for beginners it causes way more problems/injuries because it’s so easy for tension to creep in without them realizing.
Nice. Thanks..
Thanks Dimitri. Question......What kind of drum throne is that and where can I purchase one. Thanks much
I hard disagree with 2 for a multitude of reasons
It doesn’t make a big difference
Having that gap in there doesn’t add tension unless you change how you hold the stick;
I’ve been taking lessons from someone who made it to live auditions for old guard and my drum tech in marching band was partially in a dca corps back when it was dca
Having that gap gone gives me more control when i play since i have more contact on the stick, still adds no extra tension but that could also be that i’ve spent over an entire year trying to improve my technique more than anything else
What do you think about drummers like Eloy Casagrande, Aquiles Priester and Jörg Michael who pounds their drums with the force of Hercules? :D
Even at lighting speed I might add. They are crazy, feels like a workout just watching them play
I don't understand the presumption that so called self-taught musicians don't learn the basics. My early experiences with teachers consisted of tendentious, dogmatic drill instructors who took all the fun out of playing. I recoiled from them on instinct, studied recordings, and worked out drumming very well for myself. I was playing rudiment combinations--flams, drags, ratamacues, et al--before I knew I was playing rudiments. I also picked up guitar, piano, reeds... & began recording very early. By age 14 I was quite familiar with drum rudiments, odd time signatures, music theory, just from making it my business to play conscientiously. I discovered that I had been drumming with a combination of French & German (matched) grips. Bad habits of holding sticks too tightly or tightening up while executing fills around the kit never entered into my playing. These days, with four billion instructional drumming videos on the ye olde RUclips, it is astonishing that any serious player can persist with bad habits that impede or thwart their progress. I'm naturally left handed, playing the hi-hat & riding cymbals with my left hand and the snare with my right with matched grip on a right-handed drum kit set up. I have a ride in the middle of the kit and another on the right that I cross my left hand over to play. I also play right handed guitars. Dogmatic drum instructors scoffed at me for not using traditional grip or playing on a left handed set-up. I was playing professionally before I was 16. The most interesting players I can think of were all self-taught, & many of them had unorthodox approaches that by no means thwarted their progress. Quite a lot of strictly schooled players I've known play by cookie cutter standard conventions, are not creative, & are in no way original. I play a lot of different kinds of music, with an avid interest in music comprised of non-tempered scales in free time. I wish I had five dollars for every strictly schooled musician I've observed who froze and completely clammed up at the prospect of playing in free time.
sounds like you have some cool and interesting approaches to drumming, would love if you shared some clips!
Which are the basics that you refer to. Do you have a video on that?
underrated asf
amazing bro
A number of comments are regarding #2 and are saying "but x pro plays with no gap and is fine"
Yes that may be true; and if you can avoid tension with no gap, there's nothing wrong with that.
The gap is just very hard to maintain through tension, so it is commonly taught as paying attention to maintaining it has a reasonable chance of making someone incidentally train themselves to be relaxed. I don't think he's specifically saying "no gap = bad" but just "gap = can help with tension".
I myself find the gap more comfortable.
Thank you, you’ve understood the point exactly! 👊
Mind the gap
I'm self taught and have been playing for many years. I feel like I have a hard time learning new things. I'm trying to learn the push pull technique but it's hard for me. Any suggestions from anyone. I practice a lot but just can't get it down.
What practice pad is that??
It’s the Chopping Block pad from Revolution Drum :)
Great video, Sub’d!
Thanks so much! Welcome!
Subbed ! 🙌
welcome!!!
Liked the video but must say I play with most of these things you point out 😊 been a working skinsman over 50 years professionally and never harmed me playing with some pretty cool artists but understand where you're coming from !
Hey that’s great to hear! It’s possible but *extremely rare* that these mistakes don’t hold back drummers and when they come to me and we fix them then their playing takes off!
Awesome to hear you’ve been playing professionally for so long… What kind of acts/artists have you played with?
Mostly popular music performance , E Costello, The Clash, Bryan Ferry etc... Lots really but I just play don't think too much about why 👍 rock on
@royphillips7435 whoa those are some huge artists, kudos! 👊
EC and Joe were more your Hank and Elvis (the real one !) men so real deal feel playing is always at the core of their music ! Cheers ....
Good work. Feels too much time on metaphors but not going in depth on how to improve techniques
uma cadeira com encosto aqui no Brasil é mais de 1500 reais
i feel like i bought all my furniture before i started the house i have a lot of skills but i haven’t put them together
nice
1:00 Why are your legs at 90 degrees ? You are lifting more weight than you need to, especially if you play with your heel up off the pedals. As an extreme example of having to lift less weight (legs) look at the photo inside Buddy Rich's album, "The Monster" to see how angled beyond 90 Buddy's legs are. He decreased the angle later on, but still maintained more than 90 degrees. I noticed your explanation has you using a matched grip. A set up would be different comparing matched with traditional grips.
the clip goes by quick and doesn't show the position my legs end up at. I extend my legs quite a bit compared to most so the angle does not end at 90 degrees for me. I also teach a set of heel up techniques that use a quarter of the energy compared to most heel up drummers.
Regardless of all that the message remains the same; find what is TRULY optimal, ergonomic, and natural for your body and make that your mantra. Which means yes, the set up would be different for traditional grip. Thanks for your questions!
TL/DR: If it hurts, it's bad.
I play and teach the marching drum for years and I see where mistake #1 is pointing to. The thing is: proper physiological grip is not so easy to explain. You might look at someone and they have a different grip but they are still relaxed and wont get hurt. There are as many ways to hold the sticks as there are hands. But there are some biomechanical aspects which are making it "right" or "wrong". I think it is almost impossible to explain it in a video, it's already complicated enough in person.
You’re touching on why some people are mentioning “but I see X or Y famous drummer closing the gap” and it seems ok for them… because while yes it’s possible to be relaxed with that grip, it’s just VERY difficult and never explained for beginners and IMO better to not start that way at all. I have a super deep stick grip and fundamentals course free on my website for this very reason…
this is what holds back the majority of new drummers and it’s almost impossible to find great comprehensive instruction that covers enough bases. So I went ahead and made it :)
@@DimitriFantini Right, I saw some comments exactly on that. I'll look into your course, much appreciated. What I observe is that students are not very good at assessing their posture and grip, especially children. I work a lot with video to show them what it looks like from the outside when they feel it a certain way. I also make them play on different surfaces like softer and harder pads to show them how the grip changes rebound etc.
The key is teaching what to look out for and how much attention to put on it!! I was taught this as a kid myself so I promise it’s possible!!
im self tought but didnt make any of these
El estepario often has no gap between thumb and index though
You're right. I'll add that if you want to play without carpal tunnel into your 40s, I highly highly recommend you keep that gap.
@@DimitriFantinithat's not even remotely true. You can keep your hands/wrist/forearm every bit as loose with no gap.
Of course. I didn’t say it’s impossible. I’m referring to what happens for 99% of drummers when they aren’t taught to keep the gap and they subconsciously tighten up and don’t realize it. It’s the number 1 most common thing I see with students - especially for self taught drummers but also with students that were taught to close the gap. Sounds like you had a better teacher than most 👊
@@DimitriFantini The presence of the gap correlates, decently, with less tension, but by itself isn't necessarily proof of a technique issue. Longer fingers correlate with a larger gap, and you can, for example, play with a Tony William's style rear fulcrum, without the thumb and first finger doing much aside from guiding the stick, and still position your thumb so there isn't a gap. I'm not aware of anyone who regularly does, but you can if you want. Regarding El Estepario, maybe you're right... but I would be extremely hesitant to impugn his hand technique given his capabilities. His gapless presentation could also be part of a "jedi iq bell curve" sort of thing (or, more likely, he would have the same amount of control over his tension either way).
I think the key phrase you’ve used here is “but by itself”
But it’s hardly ever “by itself” in self taught drum technique.
While not always a technique problem on its own, it is *highly* correlated with hand pain, fatigue and long term injury such as carpal tunnel. I have an upcoming video I’ve filmed with a doctor of physical therapy that you might find insightful.
No gap is very comfortable for me I learned it in marching band but I’m sure it’s not for everyone
importantly this video is addressing common mistakes made by *self taught drummers* which a few comments are forgetting. It’s possible to learn techniques like you mentioned and be ok - but I’ve seen literally hundreds of cases of self taught drummers injuring themselves because of tension in their grip and this has never failed to solve it and solve many other technique problems for them.
@@DimitriFantini that could be happening with my left hand because after high school I started mimicking my right hand abandoning the traditional grip to learn match grip
Are you feeling pain or tension at all in your left fingers/hand/wrist/arm?
@@DimitriFantini left wrist for sure but it’s only when I play more than 1 hour
Then something is off but I would say it’s probably a subtle change you’d probably want to make, if it takes an hour for it to show up.
There’s literally ZERO tension in your left when you play for ten minutes? If so, it could be that you are shifting your grip/technique while you play and focus on other things… another common one!
Mistake #1: Hold your drumsticks correctly!
"Self taught" includes: Ringo...Buddy Rich...John Bonham...Dino Danelli.. Carmine Appice....
#6. Feel comfortable holding the sticks with traditional grip as well as matched....
...why
All drummers make those mistakes, not only self-taught ones.
mistakes 5 and 4 has nothing to do with self taught, and the others ? Well it does but it has to do the most with structure and indeed basics.
Hold the stick too tight, your sound quality will suck and you’ll create tension and won’t be able to play as fast and you could even hurt yourself. Too open and you’ll have no control over your stick. I like to tell my students: Imagine you’re holding a baby bird in your hand, you don’t want to squeeze it but you also don’t want it to fly away. A good way to check this is to squeeze the crap outta your left stick and then hit that stick with the one in the right hand, and experiment with how much meat can you put on the right stick while still allowing it to have the resonant bright click sound, and then check it with the other way around. The key is contact without pressure.
Another one is taking note of what constants do you have with playing at different tempi and what vocabulary you’re playing. The heads are the same but maybe different drums have a different tension, playing in the center or edge of the head has a different rebound, gravity is always the same, the weight of the stick is the same and so on. So it’s good to take note of all that to make a good judgement call on what percentage arm, wrist or finger you should use for what you’re playing.
Lastly PLEASE get comfortable with playing thing ridiculously slow. If you can’t play it slow, you can’t play it at all.
I got no problems with anything in the video, just thought I’d add my own feedback for y’all as someone from the dci/wgi community
To clarify on slow, I mean like if something you need to play is at 140 bpm, I would start learning it at 70 at the fastest, and I prefer to only bring the tempo up one click at a time, and only if I’m 100% comfortable with the tempo I just played it at
One of the things that really bugs me are beginners that want to sit at a "kit" and play like ____________! Sorry, you need to play like Ringo and Charlie Watts before you play like Carl Palmer and Mike Portnoy! The basics are the best! Learn how to use your hands. Learn to KEEP TIME! Take BASIC lessons, and learn how to use the sticks to your advantage! I'm not saying learn to read like Vinnie Coliauta, but get the basics down! Start small... Snare, Hi-hat, bass drum, ride cymbal. Learn their functions, learn to use them all together. I sat with just my hi-hat for at least a week, and figured out how to use it. But I totally agree, set up your stool and decide where things are comfy. (Billy Cobham played with his eyes closed!) THEN start basic beats. Use a metronome to keep solid time. Listen to EVERYONE!!! Even that old guy playing at a local carnival with a cruddy bar band.... you will learn something from him!!! Listen to different kinds of music (live musicians, not pre-programmed crap) Absorb EVERYTHING! Great stuff! Hopefully people will watch, and learn from this video!!
Fast is good loud is better fast and loud is best
ha!