(I have to be fair and warn you this is a bit long and preachy, though I feel that’s what many of you are looking for if you clicked on this thread.)
Hello
So for a long time now I’ve been thinking about how we drummers go about what we do. Not necessarily what we do, but why, how, why not another way. As I’m sure we all know there are a large amount of drummers fighting for the “open hand” style of playing and this is kind of what I’m talking about. Playing with crossed hands hasn’t made any sense to me since my very first lesson at 12 years old. I sat down at the kit and naturally put my left hand on the high hat and my right on the snare (or floor or whatever), and then my teacher took my hands and crossed them. I asked why and he said something along the lines of “well because you are right handed and that’s how right handed drummers play” (I would like to add at this point that he was left handed and played open handed on a righty kit, bastard lol). Being that I was 12 I took that without question and dove into the beautiful world of hitting things for money and pleasure.
Now I understand how this wound up being the norm (though please feel free to correct me if my history is a bit off). The snare drum comes from military applications when a drummer would march along with the soldiers into war (presumably to act as a shield). At the time the drum was played on a guitar-like strap and would hang by the side (which is why the snare is still sometimes called a side drum). When playing a drum like that it makes no sense to hold the sticks in matched grip because your left elbow (or right depending on how you put the drum on) would have to stick way up level with your head. This is where traditional grip came from. That was all well and good but eventually someone had the great fortune of inventing the bass drum pedal and the high hat stand and the modern drum kit was born. This is the part where the title of the post comes into play. Since the drummers who played the first drum kits had before that been military or marching drummers they brought their traditional grip with them. With a traditional grip the way the ‘standard’ drum kit (a phrase I hate) is set up makes sense. You have good access to your toms underneath your right hand and obviously your right hand can reach everything fine, especially with the old school Buddy Rich or Ringo Starr style kits. At this point a lot of drummers realized that is you want to make your single stroke rolls to sound even you should, oh I don’t know, hold both sticks the same way like ALL other percussionists play, good. But again drummers decided not to go any further and think about how to make things even better. Drummers were/are still playing cross handed and frankly I find it just silly.
As I mentioned before there is an open hand revolution happening in the drum world and while I completely agree it’s better than playing cross handed I find myself screaming THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL PLAYING A KIT SET UP FOR TRADITIONAL CROSS HANDED PLAYING!!!! To me, it seems just silly to set up a kit with everything essentially to the right of the player, it would be like sitting perpendicular to a piano trying to play both hands crossing over your body (anyone ever try playing 16th on the ride of a standard 5 piece kit?). Well I don’t know about any of you but I’m tired of playing with an encumbered instrument. The issue then becomes how do you fix it? It seems to me only logical to make the drum kit as symmetrical as possible. Why not have the high hat front and center? It’s certainly not an original idea on my part and there are a lot of drummers that do this. The only reason I can see this not being the norm is the price. It is much more expensive to get a remote high hat or an X hat than a regular one but to me seems very worth it (P.S. if anyone has a speedy hat I would REALLY like to buy it from you). That all being said please don’t get me wrong, if you play traditional, or matched, ‘standard’ kit, or symmetrical it is truly how you use it that matters. I play cross handed to this day because it was how I was taught, though I’ve seen the light and I’m changing my ways.
It reminds me of an old story. In a small town there is a woman who makes the best roast in all the land. Trying to find out how she makes such a good roast a recipe book writer contacts her and finds out she cuts the end off of every roast and throws it away. The writer asks her why she does this and she says “my mother taught me how to make roast and that’s how she always did it”. The writer is intrigued and makes contact with the mother who explains she was taught by HER mother and the writer finds her. When the writer, after a long search, finds the grandmother he asks “why do you cut the end off your roasts? What effect could that possibly have on the taste?”. The grandmother replies “don’t be stupid, I only used to cut the end off because in the old days I had a very small oven so the roast would never fit. I have a Kenmore now that fits 4 roasts at a time”. So please, I beg of you, don’t keep wasting perfectly good roast beef.
Hello
So for a long time now I’ve been thinking about how we drummers go about what we do. Not necessarily what we do, but why, how, why not another way. As I’m sure we all know there are a large amount of drummers fighting for the “open hand” style of playing and this is kind of what I’m talking about. Playing with crossed hands hasn’t made any sense to me since my very first lesson at 12 years old. I sat down at the kit and naturally put my left hand on the high hat and my right on the snare (or floor or whatever), and then my teacher took my hands and crossed them. I asked why and he said something along the lines of “well because you are right handed and that’s how right handed drummers play” (I would like to add at this point that he was left handed and played open handed on a righty kit, bastard lol). Being that I was 12 I took that without question and dove into the beautiful world of hitting things for money and pleasure.
Now I understand how this wound up being the norm (though please feel free to correct me if my history is a bit off). The snare drum comes from military applications when a drummer would march along with the soldiers into war (presumably to act as a shield). At the time the drum was played on a guitar-like strap and would hang by the side (which is why the snare is still sometimes called a side drum). When playing a drum like that it makes no sense to hold the sticks in matched grip because your left elbow (or right depending on how you put the drum on) would have to stick way up level with your head. This is where traditional grip came from. That was all well and good but eventually someone had the great fortune of inventing the bass drum pedal and the high hat stand and the modern drum kit was born. This is the part where the title of the post comes into play. Since the drummers who played the first drum kits had before that been military or marching drummers they brought their traditional grip with them. With a traditional grip the way the ‘standard’ drum kit (a phrase I hate) is set up makes sense. You have good access to your toms underneath your right hand and obviously your right hand can reach everything fine, especially with the old school Buddy Rich or Ringo Starr style kits. At this point a lot of drummers realized that is you want to make your single stroke rolls to sound even you should, oh I don’t know, hold both sticks the same way like ALL other percussionists play, good. But again drummers decided not to go any further and think about how to make things even better. Drummers were/are still playing cross handed and frankly I find it just silly.
As I mentioned before there is an open hand revolution happening in the drum world and while I completely agree it’s better than playing cross handed I find myself screaming THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL PLAYING A KIT SET UP FOR TRADITIONAL CROSS HANDED PLAYING!!!! To me, it seems just silly to set up a kit with everything essentially to the right of the player, it would be like sitting perpendicular to a piano trying to play both hands crossing over your body (anyone ever try playing 16th on the ride of a standard 5 piece kit?). Well I don’t know about any of you but I’m tired of playing with an encumbered instrument. The issue then becomes how do you fix it? It seems to me only logical to make the drum kit as symmetrical as possible. Why not have the high hat front and center? It’s certainly not an original idea on my part and there are a lot of drummers that do this. The only reason I can see this not being the norm is the price. It is much more expensive to get a remote high hat or an X hat than a regular one but to me seems very worth it (P.S. if anyone has a speedy hat I would REALLY like to buy it from you). That all being said please don’t get me wrong, if you play traditional, or matched, ‘standard’ kit, or symmetrical it is truly how you use it that matters. I play cross handed to this day because it was how I was taught, though I’ve seen the light and I’m changing my ways.
It reminds me of an old story. In a small town there is a woman who makes the best roast in all the land. Trying to find out how she makes such a good roast a recipe book writer contacts her and finds out she cuts the end off of every roast and throws it away. The writer asks her why she does this and she says “my mother taught me how to make roast and that’s how she always did it”. The writer is intrigued and makes contact with the mother who explains she was taught by HER mother and the writer finds her. When the writer, after a long search, finds the grandmother he asks “why do you cut the end off your roasts? What effect could that possibly have on the taste?”. The grandmother replies “don’t be stupid, I only used to cut the end off because in the old days I had a very small oven so the roast would never fit. I have a Kenmore now that fits 4 roasts at a time”. So please, I beg of you, don’t keep wasting perfectly good roast beef.
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