As a young drummer, other musicians complained that my fills didn’t feel smooth with my rhythm. (which can be typical for new drummers) When I started playing openhanded, it allowed me to do fills while maintaining rhythm. It helped me to be a better musical player.
I started playing open handed years ago because I wanted to "strengthen" my left hand. I kept the ride cymbal on my right as at the time I was going to open jam nights and I didn't want to have to move the ride over to the left. So I would practice playing grooves both ways with either the right hand on the ride or with the left on the hi-hat. I found that I became much more aware of the placement of the notes of each instrument and their relationship with each other and within the overall groove. So while it was definitely a coordination exercise, it also helped getting my right foot more precise. I also discovered some advantages. If I was playing a groove with a ride pattern on the hi-hat and adding notes on the toms, open style playing made it so much easier to negotiate the tom hits. I didn't have under or over one hand to get to them. I can be a bit of a klutz at times so this eliminated my sticks colliding with each other. Another benefit came to grooves where I am accenting the up-beats on the hats and laying down a straight two four backbeat. In the closed position I struggled with my left hand rising to set up the backbeat accent and my right hand coming down on the accented upbeat on the hats. My wrists always seemed to be on a collision course with each other. Playing it open eliminated the problem. Finally, an unexpected benefit was that playing open handed made it easier to breathe. I'm not a jazz drummer. I play mostly Blues, R & B and Top Forty Rock, and I often would sing back vocals. I don't know why but it seems that playing the hats with my right hand crossed over in front of me would constrain my rib cage a bit. But playing the hats with my left hand made it so much easier to take deep breaths, especially helpful when singing long notes. I also find it easier to maintain good posture and keep my torso straight. I also set up so that I am naturally facing the audience, with my hips in line with my shoulders. I have limited mobility in my neck so sitting this way allows me to see all the musicians on stage without having to strain my neck. On those occasions when I play on someone else's kit, if we do several songs and I'm trying to watch the guitarist on my right while he's doing his solos, I always come off stage with a sore and stiff neck. I'm getting old. ;-)
Gene Hoglan (who is left-handed but plays a right-handed kit open-handed) has said that one way to build up ambidexterity, is to air-drum. When you learn a lick or pattern, air-drum it with your opposite hands. The act of "thinking about it" can be just as good a practice as actually doing it on the kit.
I find three really fun/challenging beats to play open handed: 1. Purdie shuffle 2. Dave Weckl (krrllrrkLrrllrrkk, reversed) 3. Seven Days (Sting, Vinnie) Getting those to sound good right handed is a real challenge. Getting those to sound good open handed is super tricky but so good for getting your left up to speed. As an (easier) bonus try Africa (Toto)!
I cannot believe how hard those songs are, open-handed. I thought I had a handle on the Purdie Shuffle... but I switch to open-handed, and it's like I've never sat at a kit before, lol. Thanks for these suggestions.
I remember reading something recently (although I cannot remember where) from a famous drummer - maybe cobham - that someone explained to him that playing grooves with your left hand and therefore using the right hemisphere of the brain, makes grooves sound funkier, because it's "looser" and the right is more rigid - something like that anyways..interesting stuff ..
This is great! Was wondering how you felt about this. I’m one of those drummers that, as a 10 year old, didn’t take lessons and just naturally played open handed even though I’m right handed. My drum teachers tried to get me to play on a lefty kit but it just never felt right so I still play open handed 20 years later. I think it actually hurt my playing for a long time since my left hand was weaker and I wasn’t listening closely enough to how consistent my hi-hat subdivisions were. Wasn’t until after college that I really started to work on that. Now I try to practice most stuff leading with either hand to get me more conscious of my left hand accuracy/consistency. Never really considered the cool factor, guess I have just looked super cool for years now without knowing it 😎 too bad I didn’t sound as cool as I looked 😔 love the video as always
☝🏼 I feel like we have a parallel experience .. especially in wondering if it hurt my progress. .. as far as the cool factor, I always felt people looked at me weird for playing the way I do.
Thanks for this video. An open approach to playing the kit is idiomatic. It is natural to have the left hand on the left side and the right hand on the right side. We engage the drum pad and other percussion instruments openly. Remember the awkwardness of holding the right hand crossed over and above the left hand when first sitting down at a drum set? A good reason for practicing with an open approach allows for new, relaxed, freedom of movement around the kit.
Learned a substantial amount of open-handed on the jazz and funk level from a great mentor of mine back in 2020--still early in the pandemic. It really does pay off for drummers who want more freedom. Also, for those want to play more freely, especially in styles that call for great independence on the feet e.g,, Afro-Cuban, Samba, and others, it makes for immense creativity down the line. Glad you made this video.
Perfect timing with this video. I switched to matched grip and started playing open-handed just a couple days ago. The biggest benefit for me so far is in creativity: I just tend to play totally different grooves and fills when my left hand is leading, so I write them down or record myself and then learn to play them right-hand-lead as well.
Right. I find that certain patterns or grooves are easy to fall into depending on which hand I lead with. Not that I want to play based on patterns, but there are certain avenues that each way of playing might open up to one. And even if you play the same groove either way, it’s going to feel slightly different. Try playing the groove to Cold Sweat leading righty with traditional grip on the snare on the left hand; now play a leading lefty and see how it feels.
It took me years to realize I'm lefthanded, but right footed. When I got my first double bass pedal I quickly came to understand my right leg played off my left hand better.
Thank you so much for this video! I always felt like no one talks enough about open hand. BTW seeing Chris Turner play I always think if you could consider that an hybrid open-close because he switches between both seamlessly.
How i thought it never mattered as long as the strokes are right in place along the bars with a consistent tempo...one is always born with a brain left and right...😀 I actually liked the point you touched upon...👍
I was self-taught and back in those days there wasn't billions of videos you could easily reference to for lessons. Plane open handed just felt much more natural to me and when I started I had the ride over the high hat. Through the decades of playing with different bands , touring and having to get used to different house kits I learned to play high hat with left hand and ride with right. I feel like it's benefited me in the long run. Not to mention your hi-hat and ride patterns are pretty limitless. When I was a kid I only knew of three drummers who played this way, Faith no More drummer, Simon Phillips, and Antonio fig from The arsenio Hall show LOL
Great video. I've played open since day 1, 35 years ago. I'm a leftie on a standard set up. Started that way and, thankfully, my teachers left it. I am left handed but I lead naturally with my right. Okay... so that's the exact opposite of Ringo. It took me years to realise that playing open implied a left hand lead! It makes some things hard, some easy. Looking back... I would have switched to crossing over. But I'm happy anyway. I sometimes find myself crossing over now... which is great as my left hand is killer!
Hello from Kansas City, Missouri. Another great video as always Nate. On CZcams their are many videos of live performances from the Jazz Greats where you will see them switch between closed and open playing as well as traditional and matched grip, depending on the phrase. I can think of two in particular, Tony Williams and Jeff Watts. So it doesn't have to be one way or another all of the time. Thanks.
I am learning to play open because I'm really left handed and was taught the right handed way. I personally believe it will open up tons of opportunities in drumming when we start to think and feel with our left.
@@mymemoriesasme that's great! as for my case, i often feel that my left is actually what defines the character of my playing that's why im trying to reclaim my left hand dominance 🤣
I've incorporated playing open handed into my practice and my playing, I practice rudiments over foot ostinatos both right and left hand lead and I've recently set up a left handed kit next to my right handed kit where I can simply swivel my throne and use my hi hats with my right foot and have a kick pedal under my left foot and practice left foot lead as well. So far, it is unuseable in anything but my own practice time and keeping time on the hats with my right foot is challenging but I can feel that my timing, coordination and independance are benefitting greatly from my new approach. The progress playing left footed has been pretty quick, although I was starting from a very low base, albeit with a fairly good idea of what I needed to do to start out and improve. My aim is for total independance and ambidexterity with both hands and feet and it's a lifelong goal that I'm a long way from yet, but I'm having lots more fun playing drums than I ever have before, more success in recording to standards that I find acceptable than I ever used to.
It kind of blew my mind learning that Simon Phillips couldn't practice on his set when he made the decision to play open handed. He learned all the fundamental patterns he knew right hand lead by sitting on the left side of his sofa and using the armrest as his hihat. I messed around with an open setup for the last few months, had my main hat as low as possible, 2nd ride on the left. I still felt a bit clunky for intricate stuff with the left hand. I would hit the cymbals too hard and snare too lightly. It's getting better though. Right now I have my hats a bit higher, so I can get away with left hand lead comfortably but also have some clearance between the snare for right hand lead. Also I have my aux hats/ ride on the right as "in case of emergency break glass" as Simon Phillips described lol. From what I've uncovered the key for me with open handed playing besides dynamic control is simply getting the L+K not flamming.
Left hand + Kick! That's it! I worked on that a lot and i can now switch my hands on the hihat to do barks+kick or double hits on the left stack+kick and stuff like that without thinking about it. That being said, yesterday I was doing some double bass stuff (I usually play jazz/ hiphop) and I discovered a glaring weakness in my playing. My left foot and my left hand are not as "coherent" as I believed they were! They keep flamming especially at higher speeds and when I'm playing them on the ands. Something to keep me occupied for the next few months no doubt, and it'll probably translate to better hihat control when I'm leading with the left. 😄
@@iDigsGiantRobots That’s a plan! May I suggest that you start slow and eventually, with higher tempos, start to notice what BPM the flamming begins and then work around these tempos so as you can compare from one week to the next how you are improving by CONSISTENTLY maintaining the non-flamming situation Zoning in like this can be very helpful -being able to measure your progress will do many things… It will reassure you that the way you’re going about things IS the right way (if there isn’t improvement then you know you’re not) and it can help you “bring up to speed“ other issues with other limbs, for instance, because you can group things, sort of against, sort of, each other -comparing them Drumming, of course, isn’t a competition but if you make it a competition with yourself alone then that can be helpful, I find Anyhoo, good luck 👍
I play a lefty kit open. I'm right handed and I find it much much easier to get odd time signatures right. I started self taught trying the more traditional way but when I figured out to orient my kit lefty and started playing open my learning curve went way up. I will admit I have been doing it that way so long it's hard for me to sit at a right handed kit and play. On that note, thank you for challenging me the way you do, brain food good.
As far as anecdotes go, open-handed playing and alternating did tremendously boost my general chops. Or it goes the other way around in terms of causality, maybe I was more apprehensive about it at first when it took more effort to get acquainted with new techniques and such. Either way I am loving it.
Nice job on this. I’d argue that there are a few other reasons for leaning to lead with either side. One is that if you have to play really loudly, playing open facilitates louder backbeats ( while allowing the backbeat hand to wander around the kit more freely and perhaps come up with some in the pocket sound source variations). Along with this is the ability to rest a given limb during the course of a tune while maintaining the groove. Been playing Back In Black for 20 minutes and your right hand wants to fall off? Switch! Another is that a given groove will sound and feel somewhat differently depending on whether you play open or closed. Generally the more dominant limb will have better dynamic control, which is important when you have to play something softly and delicately. But sometimes, as in the previous sentence, it’s OK to be ham-handed. In this case, being able to lead with your weaker limb gives you that capability. And over time, if you do the work, your ability to control dynamics with the weaker limb will improve. The key thing here is that each limb has certain movements it favors, which can lead to different defaults, and different ways of responding to the music. E.g., If you try to play Cold Sweat leading right handed with left hand traditional grip, it’s gonna sound one-way. If you try it leading lefty, it’s going to sound slightly differently because the sticks are hitting the sound sources in different places and from slightly different angles than before. It gives you more options, in my experience.
There was a period of time in college i spent a month or two doing a lot of new breed stuff and playing songs open handed with my ride on my left. Every so often ill do that in my practice sessions. While i dont normally play open handed i always feel way more even after those periods of open handed practice!
I always love these videos of the week. I'm sure you get flooded with video requests, so here's one more... Drumming with song loops. How do you get into it, and what do you use them for in practice? Will they help me get the gig?
First you got to move your ride next to the HH and the leading hand problem disappears. Secondly, there is a good advantage in having the ride next to the HH because you can make unique grooves between them without having to jump from one side of the room to the other. Third advantage is your right hand is completely free to go everywhere so you can keep your HH/Ride groove while soloing on the kit. Fourth, no need to rise the HH sky high anymore, and your right shoulder will thank you for that. Fifth, the posture is better. Six, no more clicking sticks. Seven, the kick is now in close relation with the snare not with the HH so your grooves will benefit a lot from this.
But you induce another problem. Playing with two handed singles on the hihats places the back beat on your left hand, which makes it so that you have to cross over. You can maybe solve it by playing a double before that, bit it's not very convenient.
@@bartvankeersop8218 Well not really because your leading hand is the right so downbeats will be on the right. This is an advantage because you`re free to do whatever crazy fill with your leading hand while playing the hh/ride with the following one. It works well for me and i think it can also well for those who consider switching to open because now their leading hand will become the following hand and it`s a great advantage having a strong and independent following hand.
Came back after watching your sextuplet episode. Realized it was how I started interpreting the language of the drums playing open that helped me stumbled into using sextuplets as extended runs nicely tucked inside standard grooves. That mathematical connection connected without thought. A HUGE, A-Ha Moment, it's more than playing cool.. It's a different percussive dialect of the same language.. With any language the more we use it, the more we change on a fundamental level. IHMO playing open is a different dialect, you use the brain differently to communicate the same thing.. I'll answer the obvious question, Yes! :)
I go between open handed and normal depending on what I want to do. I find playing open handed gives me more options with creativity. Using my right hand to do linear fills along with my right foot for instance or playing accented patterns with the snare and ride/china/tom. Basicaly, I want to try and limit the distance required to play what I have in my head so I go between normal and open handed to do all that. My back is very grateful for my efforts. I don't care about looking cool ... that is for new players or stick twirlers.
McKnasty is probably one of the most out of the box players recently, and I think his open handed playing is a big factor. It lets you create tight pockets with more than kick hat snare, just like a drum machine sequences
You forgot to mention the most important thing! There is nothing in the way of your hands, like your other arm. You can play incredible hi hat to ride combos while doing a filling at the same time, plus hi hat to ride to snare super fast double bass fillings. Most important though, your other arm is not in the way of adding anything you want.🤨🇺🇸
Actually, trying to play open handed really makes you have a steadier faster left hand wich ends up in having better one stroke rolls and it gives you some new ideas for fills and beats, so these are the main benefits in my case…..and it looks cool
Ok, so I learned to play open handed on a left handed kit. I am right handed. But before I got a kit, I only had hats and a snare. It seemed silly to cross over, so I just put the hats to the right. Then when I got a full kit, I just put the ride on the right.
Good vid. I would tell any drummer who wants to play open-handed, you have to get your lefthand wrist muscles strong. That's where your control is. Work on the fingers, but get that wrist strong.
It helps if we set the hats from the right side you think or is not the best way to learn open??I'm Sure you think the next way we should learn is to learn playing traditional grip and then what follows??Left foot to bass drum?? If we goal all these we finally can be characterised as fully coordinated?
Erm well yes u should practice it, but unless as nate said if you're a lefty on a right hand kit or ambidextrous there's no point usually unless tomming around and playing off Beats on hats.. but as a practice it's gotta be important
Natural cross-handed lefty here, playing open I believe does improve your 'normal' playing. Playing open can be useful for a slightly different feel and sound. I play a plain offbeat disco feel better and easier with open, and straight 8th grooves sound a bit 'evened out', compared to cross hand as the feel is different. I can approximate Ringo's washy hats cross handed, but not a chance open lol. If I'm playing straight 8ths on the hat and I want it completely even, no 'bounce' or accents on the quarter so to speak, I play that better open, even though it's certainly doable cross hand. And take Kenny Aronoff's early John Cougar stuff. If you want the same feel he captured, you have to play "Hurts so Good" open, especially the simple 8th note fill towards the end of the fade out. And Simon does loads of things where he rides on the hats or his giant Swish Knocker with his left, leaving his right free to 'roam' unincumbered around his toms. In the end though, in my opinion, it's personal preference. I certainly agree we play for fun, but in the end it's what feels right for you and the music you're playing... One more thing: Having covered a few DMB tunes (What Would You Say, Ants Marching, Crush), for me the ONLY way to play it, not because it looks cool but because it helped me try to capture the same feel as Carter, was to play them open. Whenever I play along with him, if at all possible I'm going the open route (except his two-handed riding that is lol). And if you want a relatively easy groove to start with experimenting with open, try the linear groove from Rush's The Weapon. Neil, as he always did, came up with one cool sounding beat that sounds deceptively easy. You could probably do it cross-handed, but the real authentic way has to be open in my opinion.
I started playing when I was young. I am left handed, and that's how I started to learn with a left handed set up. When I got into to school band, my teacher said. You play drums right handed. Long time ago right? Fast forward, many years. I feel as I have never been able to match my right hand coordination to my left hand. Learning to play open handed years ago would have been the ticket. This has affected my drumming in a negative way. I still blame my band teacher
Blaming the band teacher is all well and good, but that fixes nothing. If you wanna learn to play left-handed, learn to play left-handed. It’s not that hard.
Serious question: as one of the outliers (a lefty that's self-taught himself on a rh kit, open-handed)... How in the hell can I effectively break into traditional rh lead? My buddy always just says 'raise your hi hat', and switch. When I do that, it's like I'm having a seizure. All hand-foot coordination goes away. I'm not talking a slight difference. I'm talking sounds like a loose drum set in the back of a box truck.... It's bad. I need some kind of basic tool for a mental breakthrough, and I'm struggling to come up with it myself. Please haaaaalp! Love your channel.
Louis doesn't switch though, he just plays left handed on a right handed kit. Usually he puts the ride on the left side, but I've also seen him reach over with his left to the right side to play on a cymbal as well. I'm being a little nitpicky but hey, whatevs.
I'm lefty drummer that plays a right handed kit. I've just always naturally played open handed. The only big difference in how I set my kit up is that I have my ride over next to my hi hat. Other than that, everything else is set up right handed. Mike Borden from Faith No More plays that way too.
not sure if its limited by my rigid vdrum setup... but i never cross my sticks even right hand hh leading on a righty setup... snare stick behind my hat stick not under... is this bad? lol... i feel like my snare stick is super limited by always being under my hat stick
I’m naturally left handed, but because nobody listened to me as a kid I was taught everything right handed. So playing open handed to me, is just one way of retraining my body to operate the way it wants to. Alongside relearning how to write, and just generally leading with the left more in daily life
Nice video. It flowed very well. Just like drummers who can alternate lead because the larger the kit the further the reach when using the wrong stick. It’s not that open playing is cool it’s crossover crashing looks so bad. Unless your TravisBarker then you can take the artistic license to pretzel crach.
As a young drummer, other musicians complained that my fills didn’t feel smooth with my rhythm. (which can be typical for new drummers) When I started playing openhanded, it allowed me to do fills while maintaining rhythm. It helped me to be a better musical player.
Right on. I think it's useful for those sweet "pocket fills" which a lot of gospel guys use and something I've been trying to work on.
Carter performance of #41 was one of the most transformative performances for my drumming honestly
I started playing open handed years ago because I wanted to "strengthen" my left hand. I kept the ride cymbal on my right as at the time I was going to open jam nights and I didn't want to have to move the ride over to the left. So I would practice playing grooves both ways with either the right hand on the ride or with the left on the hi-hat. I found that I became much more aware of the placement of the notes of each instrument and their relationship with each other and within the overall groove. So while it was definitely a coordination exercise, it also helped getting my right foot more precise.
I also discovered some advantages. If I was playing a groove with a ride pattern on the hi-hat and adding notes on the toms, open style playing made it so much easier to negotiate the tom hits. I didn't have under or over one hand to get to them. I can be a bit of a klutz at times so this eliminated my sticks colliding with each other. Another benefit came to grooves where I am accenting the up-beats on the hats and laying down a straight two four backbeat. In the closed position I struggled with my left hand rising to set up the backbeat accent and my right hand coming down on the accented upbeat on the hats. My wrists always seemed to be on a collision course with each other. Playing it open eliminated the problem.
Finally, an unexpected benefit was that playing open handed made it easier to breathe. I'm not a jazz drummer. I play mostly Blues, R & B and Top Forty Rock, and I often would sing back vocals. I don't know why but it seems that playing the hats with my right hand crossed over in front of me would constrain my rib cage a bit. But playing the hats with my left hand made it so much easier to take deep breaths, especially helpful when singing long notes. I also find it easier to maintain good posture and keep my torso straight. I also set up so that I am naturally facing the audience, with my hips in line with my shoulders. I have limited mobility in my neck so sitting this way allows me to see all the musicians on stage without having to strain my neck. On those occasions when I play on someone else's kit, if we do several songs and I'm trying to watch the guitarist on my right while he's doing his solos, I always come off stage with a sore and stiff neck. I'm getting old. ;-)
Dude you forgot one of my all time favorite drummers, Will Kennedy from the YellowJackets!
Damn right!!!!!!!
Gene Hoglan (who is left-handed but plays a right-handed kit open-handed) has said that one way to build up ambidexterity, is to air-drum. When you learn a lick or pattern, air-drum it with your opposite hands. The act of "thinking about it" can be just as good a practice as actually doing it on the kit.
Love Gene
Gene "Just Groove With It" Hoglan -- What a monster!
Great one
mental practice is proven to be affectice!
I find three really fun/challenging beats to play open handed:
1. Purdie shuffle
2. Dave Weckl (krrllrrkLrrllrrkk, reversed)
3. Seven Days (Sting, Vinnie)
Getting those to sound good right handed is a real challenge. Getting those to sound good open handed is super tricky but so good for getting your left up to speed. As an (easier) bonus try Africa (Toto)!
I cannot believe how hard those songs are, open-handed. I thought I had a handle on the Purdie Shuffle... but I switch to open-handed, and it's like I've never sat at a kit before, lol.
Thanks for these suggestions.
I remember reading something recently (although I cannot remember where) from a famous drummer - maybe cobham - that someone explained to him that playing grooves with your left hand and therefore using the right hemisphere of the brain, makes grooves sound funkier, because it's "looser" and the right is more rigid - something like that anyways..interesting stuff ..
This is great! Was wondering how you felt about this. I’m one of those drummers that, as a 10 year old, didn’t take lessons and just naturally played open handed even though I’m right handed. My drum teachers tried to get me to play on a lefty kit but it just never felt right so I still play open handed 20 years later. I think it actually hurt my playing for a long time since my left hand was weaker and I wasn’t listening closely enough to how consistent my hi-hat subdivisions were. Wasn’t until after college that I really started to work on that. Now I try to practice most stuff leading with either hand to get me more conscious of my left hand accuracy/consistency. Never really considered the cool factor, guess I have just looked super cool for years now without knowing it 😎 too bad I didn’t sound as cool as I looked 😔 love the video as always
☝🏼 I feel like we have a parallel experience .. especially in wondering if it hurt my progress. .. as far as the cool factor, I always felt people looked at me weird for playing the way I do.
Thanks for this video. An open approach to playing the kit is idiomatic. It is natural to have the left hand on the left side and the right hand on the right side. We engage the drum pad and other percussion instruments openly. Remember the awkwardness of holding the right hand crossed over and above the left hand when first sitting down at a drum set? A good reason for practicing with an open approach allows for new, relaxed, freedom of movement around the kit.
Thanks 80/20 Drummer. You're awesome 😎. I've played over 50 years. Play daily. For fun. Play with some Prog guys. But I've watched you for years TY
I'm a left handed drummer playing a right handed kit and I've been waiting for a video like this for ages!
Learned a substantial amount of open-handed on the jazz and funk level from a great mentor of mine back in 2020--still early in the pandemic. It really does pay off for drummers who want more freedom. Also, for those want to play more freely, especially in styles that call for great independence on the feet e.g,, Afro-Cuban, Samba, and others, it makes for immense creativity down the line. Glad you made this video.
Perfect timing with this video. I switched to matched grip and started playing open-handed just a couple days ago. The biggest benefit for me so far is in creativity: I just tend to play totally different grooves and fills when my left hand is leading, so I write them down or record myself and then learn to play them right-hand-lead as well.
Right. I find that certain patterns or grooves are easy to fall into depending on which hand I lead with. Not that I want to play based on patterns, but there are certain avenues that each way of playing might open up to one. And even if you play the same groove either way, it’s going to feel slightly different. Try playing the groove to Cold Sweat leading righty with traditional grip on the snare on the left hand; now play a leading lefty and see how it feels.
It took me years to realize I'm lefthanded, but right footed. When I got my first double bass pedal I quickly came to understand my right leg played off my left hand better.
Simon Phillips and Bun E. Carlos, Steve Smith are a few of my favorite open handers.
That simple groove at 12:13 is so important to get on the money. I spend most of my time doing stuff like that.
Thank you so much for this video! I always felt like no one talks enough about open hand.
BTW seeing Chris Turner play I always think if you could consider that an hybrid open-close because he switches between both seamlessly.
Harry miree!
How i thought it never mattered as long as the strokes are right in place along the bars with a consistent tempo...one is always born with a brain left and right...😀
I actually liked the point you touched upon...👍
I was self-taught and back in those days there wasn't billions of videos you could easily reference to for lessons. Plane open handed just felt much more natural to me and when I started I had the ride over the high hat. Through the decades of playing with different bands , touring and having to get used to different house kits I learned to play high hat with left hand and ride with right. I feel like it's benefited me in the long run. Not to mention your hi-hat and ride patterns are pretty limitless. When I was a kid I only knew of three drummers who played this way, Faith no More drummer, Simon Phillips, and Antonio fig from The arsenio Hall show LOL
I’ve been listening to DMB heavy the past few months too.. so relevant.. This lesson is awesome 🔥🎬
We do it to look cool! Love it!
Great video. I've played open since day 1, 35 years ago. I'm a leftie on a standard set up. Started that way and, thankfully, my teachers left it. I am left handed but I lead naturally with my right. Okay... so that's the exact opposite of Ringo. It took me years to realise that playing open implied a left hand lead! It makes some things hard, some easy. Looking back... I would have switched to crossing over. But I'm happy anyway. I sometimes find myself crossing over now... which is great as my left hand is killer!
Hello from Kansas City, Missouri. Another great video as always Nate. On CZcams their are many videos of live performances from the Jazz Greats where you will see them switch between closed and open playing as well as traditional and matched grip, depending on the phrase. I can think of two in particular, Tony Williams and Jeff Watts. So it doesn't have to be one way or another all of the time. Thanks.
I am learning to play open because I'm really left handed and was taught the right handed way. I personally believe it will open up tons of opportunities in drumming when we start to think and feel with our left.
I am a lefty taught to play right. I am playing more open handed. I would always wanted to start with the left. 😂
@@mymemoriesasme that's great! as for my case, i often feel that my left is actually what defines the character of my playing that's why im trying to reclaim my left hand dominance 🤣
Great !!! Thanks a lot .
I've incorporated playing open handed into my practice and my playing, I practice rudiments over foot ostinatos both right and left hand lead and I've recently set up a left handed kit next to my right handed kit where I can simply swivel my throne and use my hi hats with my right foot and have a kick pedal under my left foot and practice left foot lead as well. So far, it is unuseable in anything but my own practice time and keeping time on the hats with my right foot is challenging but I can feel that my timing, coordination and independance are benefitting greatly from my new approach. The progress playing left footed has been pretty quick, although I was starting from a very low base, albeit with a fairly good idea of what I needed to do to start out and improve. My aim is for total independance and ambidexterity with both hands and feet and it's a lifelong goal that I'm a long way from yet, but I'm having lots more fun playing drums than I ever have before, more success in recording to standards that I find acceptable than I ever used to.
Nate, really enjoyed the outtakes.
It kind of blew my mind learning that Simon Phillips couldn't practice on his set when he made the decision to play open handed. He learned all the fundamental patterns he knew right hand lead by sitting on the left side of his sofa and using the armrest as his hihat.
I messed around with an open setup for the last few months, had my main hat as low as possible, 2nd ride on the left. I still felt a bit clunky for intricate stuff with the left hand. I would hit the cymbals too hard and snare too lightly. It's getting better though.
Right now I have my hats a bit higher, so I can get away with left hand lead comfortably but also have some clearance between the snare for right hand lead. Also I have my aux hats/ ride on the right as "in case of emergency break glass" as Simon Phillips described lol.
From what I've uncovered the key for me with open handed playing besides dynamic control is simply getting the L+K not flamming.
Forgive my ignorance but what’s “L + K“ ?
Does it mean left hand and kick drum?
@@BeesWaxMinder yes kick and left hand unison hits
@@t3hgir cheers 👍
Left hand + Kick! That's it! I worked on that a lot and i can now switch my hands on the hihat to do barks+kick or double hits on the left stack+kick and stuff like that without thinking about it.
That being said, yesterday I was doing some double bass stuff (I usually play jazz/ hiphop) and I discovered a glaring weakness in my playing. My left foot and my left hand are not as "coherent" as I believed they were! They keep flamming especially at higher speeds and when I'm playing them on the ands. Something to keep me occupied for the next few months no doubt, and it'll probably translate to better hihat control when I'm leading with the left. 😄
@@iDigsGiantRobots That’s a plan!
May I suggest that you start slow and eventually, with higher tempos, start to notice what BPM the flamming begins and then work around these tempos so as you can compare from one week to the next how you are improving by CONSISTENTLY maintaining the non-flamming situation
Zoning in like this can be very helpful
-being able to measure your progress will do many things… It will reassure you that the way you’re going about things IS the right way (if there isn’t improvement then you know you’re not) and it can help you “bring up to speed“ other issues with other limbs, for instance, because you can group things, sort of against, sort of, each other -comparing them
Drumming, of course, isn’t a competition but if you make it a competition with yourself alone then that can be helpful, I find
Anyhoo, good luck 👍
*Prepares to feel attacked*
Open handed does look cool. I tried it but I still need to get used to it. You, on the other hand, made it look easy.
Simon Philips is a great open handed player and the Dave song is #41! Great video man
I play a lefty kit open. I'm right handed and I find it much much easier to get odd time signatures right. I started self taught trying the more traditional way but when I figured out to orient my kit lefty and started playing open my learning curve went way up. I will admit I have been doing it that way so long it's hard for me to sit at a right handed kit and play. On that note, thank you for challenging me the way you do, brain food good.
loved the Petrushka reference. one of my favorite pieces ever.
As far as anecdotes go, open-handed playing and alternating did tremendously boost my general chops. Or it goes the other way around in terms of causality, maybe I was more apprehensive about it at first when it took more effort to get acquainted with new techniques and such. Either way I am loving it.
For me your third point (coordination) helped me with my drumming over all. I wish I would have practiced open handed a long time ago.
I play open hand. Always have, even though I'm a righty. Standard right hand lead setup on the kit. I enjoy it, feels natural.
Nice job on this. I’d argue that there are a few other reasons for leaning to lead with either side. One is that if you have to play really loudly, playing open facilitates louder backbeats ( while allowing the backbeat hand to wander around the kit more freely and perhaps come up with some in the pocket sound source variations). Along with this is the ability to rest a given limb during the course of a tune while maintaining the groove. Been playing Back In Black for 20 minutes and your right hand wants to fall off? Switch! Another is that a given groove will sound and feel somewhat differently depending on whether you play open or closed. Generally the more dominant limb will have better dynamic control, which is important when you have to play something softly and delicately. But sometimes, as in the previous sentence, it’s OK to be ham-handed. In this case, being able to lead with your weaker limb gives you that capability. And over time, if you do the work, your ability to control dynamics with the weaker limb will improve. The key thing here is that each limb has certain movements it favors, which can lead to different defaults, and different ways of responding to the music. E.g., If you try to play Cold Sweat leading right handed with left hand traditional grip, it’s gonna sound one-way. If you try it leading lefty, it’s going to sound slightly differently because the sticks are hitting the sound sources in different places and from slightly different angles than before. It gives you more options, in my experience.
There was a period of time in college i spent a month or two doing a lot of new breed stuff and playing songs open handed with my ride on my left. Every so often ill do that in my practice sessions. While i dont normally play open handed i always feel way more even after those periods of open handed practice!
Man, you have no fear on tackling controversial drum topics! Awesome.
I always love these videos of the week. I'm sure you get flooded with video requests, so here's one more... Drumming with song loops. How do you get into it, and what do you use them for in practice? Will they help me get the gig?
playing latin rhythms with both hands leading helps a lot learning how to improvise in that style
Under the Table and Drumming burned permanent background images into the tape heads of my vhs player i played it so much back in the day
First you got to move your ride next to the HH and the leading hand problem disappears. Secondly, there is a good advantage in having the ride next to the HH because you can make unique grooves between them without having to jump from one side of the room to the other. Third advantage is your right hand is completely free to go everywhere so you can keep your HH/Ride groove while soloing on the kit. Fourth, no need to rise the HH sky high anymore, and your right shoulder will thank you for that. Fifth, the posture is better. Six, no more clicking sticks. Seven, the kick is now in close relation with the snare not with the HH so your grooves will benefit a lot from this.
But you induce another problem. Playing with two handed singles on the hihats places the back beat on your left hand, which makes it so that you have to cross over. You can maybe solve it by playing a double before that, bit it's not very convenient.
@@bartvankeersop8218 Well not really because your leading hand is the right so downbeats will be on the right. This is an advantage because you`re free to do whatever crazy fill with your leading hand while playing the hh/ride with the following one. It works well for me and i think it can also well for those who consider switching to open because now their leading hand will become the following hand and it`s a great advantage having a strong and independent following hand.
I do jazz guitarist and I train bjj too I love seeing it in your videos haha
A super valid suggestion for left handed as of lately is Travis Orbin…. The dude makes playing open handed look so good and soooooo easy.
YES!
Came back after watching your sextuplet episode. Realized it was how I started interpreting the language of the drums playing open that helped me stumbled into using sextuplets as extended runs nicely tucked inside standard grooves. That mathematical connection connected without thought. A HUGE, A-Ha Moment, it's more than playing cool.. It's a different percussive dialect of the same language.. With any language the more we use it, the more we change on a fundamental level. IHMO playing open is a different dialect, you use the brain differently to communicate the same thing.. I'll answer the obvious question, Yes! :)
Great job
you still owe me another idea. Don't think I'll forget 🤣🤣
@@8020drummer Come over Monday
Open hand drumming makes me think of simmon Philips
If it sounds good, it’s not wrong.
Irrelevant to this topic
@@morbidmanmusic no it’s not. It’s totally relevant!
props for chucking in louis cole
discovering this waay later... Carter is a huge ball of talent.. learning to play open is a serious bitch!! but i won't give up!
i study with lenny and he just blows my mind
I go between open handed and normal depending on what I want to do. I find playing open handed gives me more options with creativity. Using my right hand to do linear fills along with my right foot for instance or playing accented patterns with the snare and ride/china/tom. Basicaly, I want to try and limit the distance required to play what I have in my head so I go between normal and open handed to do all that. My back is very grateful for my efforts. I don't care about looking cool ... that is for new players or stick twirlers.
Simon Phillips!
McKnasty is probably one of the most out of the box players recently, and I think his open handed playing is a big factor. It lets you create tight pockets with more than kick hat snare, just like a drum machine sequences
You forgot to mention the most important thing! There is nothing in the way of your hands, like your other arm. You can play incredible hi hat to ride combos while doing a filling at the same time, plus hi hat to ride to snare super fast double bass fillings. Most important though, your other arm is not in the way of adding anything you want.🤨🇺🇸
Actually, trying to play open handed really makes you have a steadier faster left hand wich ends up in having better one stroke rolls and it gives you some new ideas for fills and beats, so these are the main benefits in my case…..and it looks cool
Ok, so I learned to play open handed on a left handed kit. I am right handed. But before I got a kit, I only had hats and a snare. It seemed silly to cross over, so I just put the hats to the right. Then when I got a full kit, I just put the ride on the right.
Great
Good vid. I would tell any drummer who wants to play open-handed, you have to get your lefthand wrist muscles strong. That's where your control is. Work on the fingers, but get that wrist strong.
You missed will kennedy of the yellowjackets.....sorry im a fan........
It helps if we set the hats from the right side you think or is not the best way to learn open??I'm Sure you think the next way we should learn is to learn playing traditional grip and then what follows??Left foot to bass drum?? If we goal all these we finally can be characterised as fully coordinated?
Occasionally I practice open hand just to build left hand. Cause on average it's more right hand hitting - so we need to disbalance it the other way
I did this the first day I started playing when I was a teen. It just seemed stupid to cross your hands over to play hi-hat.
💪💪
I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous
well then you would be, on account of using both of...one arm?
Open-handed squad what's up!?
Main ride on right, hats on left, ultimate coolness
Erm well yes u should practice it, but unless as nate said if you're a lefty on a right hand kit or ambidextrous there's no point usually unless tomming around and playing off Beats on hats.. but as a practice it's gotta be important
Natural cross-handed lefty here, playing open I believe does improve your 'normal' playing. Playing open can be useful for a slightly different feel and sound. I play a plain offbeat disco feel better and easier with open, and straight 8th grooves sound a bit 'evened out', compared to cross hand as the feel is different. I can approximate Ringo's washy hats cross handed, but not a chance open lol. If I'm playing straight 8ths on the hat and I want it completely even, no 'bounce' or accents on the quarter so to speak, I play that better open, even though it's certainly doable cross hand. And take Kenny Aronoff's early John Cougar stuff. If you want the same feel he captured, you have to play "Hurts so Good" open, especially the simple 8th note fill towards the end of the fade out. And Simon does loads of things where he rides on the hats or his giant Swish Knocker with his left, leaving his right free to 'roam' unincumbered around his toms. In the end though, in my opinion, it's personal preference. I certainly agree we play for fun, but in the end it's what feels right for you and the music you're playing...
One more thing: Having covered a few DMB tunes (What Would You Say, Ants Marching, Crush), for me the ONLY way to play it, not because it looks cool but because it helped me try to capture the same feel as Carter, was to play them open. Whenever I play along with him, if at all possible I'm going the open route (except his two-handed riding that is lol). And if you want a relatively easy groove to start with experimenting with open, try the linear groove from Rush's The Weapon. Neil, as he always did, came up with one cool sounding beat that sounds deceptively easy. You could probably do it cross-handed, but the real authentic way has to be open in my opinion.
You Forgot the Most Famous Open Handed Drummer Simon Philipps, Come on Man !!!
I started playing when I was young. I am left handed, and that's how I started to learn with a left handed set up. When I got into to school band, my teacher said. You play drums right handed. Long time ago right? Fast forward, many years. I feel as I have never been able to match my right hand coordination to my left hand. Learning to play open handed years ago would have been the ticket. This has affected my drumming in a negative way. I still blame my band teacher
Blaming the band teacher is all well and good, but that fixes nothing. If you wanna learn to play left-handed, learn to play left-handed. It’s not that hard.
I have always played open and never thought it was a thing. Most certainly never consider it to be "cool"... until NOW.
I go between both open and traditional as Im a lefty playing a righty kit.
Thoughts on John Blackwell’s approach?
Serious question: as one of the outliers (a lefty that's self-taught himself on a rh kit, open-handed)... How in the hell can I effectively break into traditional rh lead? My buddy always just says 'raise your hi hat', and switch. When I do that, it's like I'm having a seizure. All hand-foot coordination goes away. I'm not talking a slight difference. I'm talking sounds like a loose drum set in the back of a box truck.... It's bad. I need some kind of basic tool for a mental breakthrough, and I'm struggling to come up with it myself.
Please haaaaalp!
Love your channel.
Louis doesn't switch though, he just plays left handed on a right handed kit. Usually he puts the ride on the left side, but I've also seen him reach over with his left to the right side to play on a cymbal as well. I'm being a little nitpicky but hey, whatevs.
Like the song sweatin'
I'm lefty drummer that plays a right handed kit. I've just always naturally played open handed. The only big difference in how I set my kit up is that I have my ride over next to my hi hat. Other than that, everything else is set up right handed. Mike Borden from Faith No More plays that way too.
first look me: "mh ? does he have slight cauli`s ??"
30sec later :"barimbolo, roll through etc.. "
me:" I see- we got the same hobbies..."
Yes I play open handed but it's all preference I guess
Paco Sery, Simon Phillips and Mike Mangini they are also ambidextrous and play open.
Simon Phillips.
Just starting to practice open handed drumming. Should we practice open handed?
not sure if its limited by my rigid vdrum setup... but i never cross my sticks even right hand hh leading on a righty setup... snare stick behind my hat stick not under... is this bad? lol... i feel like my snare stick is super limited by always being under my hat stick
I’m naturally left handed, but because nobody listened to me as a kid I was taught everything right handed. So playing open handed to me, is just one way of retraining my body to operate the way it wants to. Alongside relearning how to write, and just generally leading with the left more in daily life
NEW BREED
Dave Matthew's Band #41
Nice video. It flowed very well. Just like drummers who can alternate lead because the larger the kit the further the reach when using the wrong stick. It’s not that open playing is cool it’s crossover crashing looks so bad. Unless your TravisBarker then you can take the artistic license to pretzel crach.
I wish I would have learned open from the very beginning.
The answer is yes
Simon Phillips
Berimbolo/uchi Mata. 🤙🏻
Will Kennedy
there is a time and place for all hand positions. be diverse fellow drummers !!! 😎
You forgot Simon Phillips
It works better for those who use a more French grip
Not really. No traditional grip though... without issues.
AJ hall!!!!!
the people you are playing with, don't care which way your palms are facing. just keep that in mind fellas.
Gene Hoglan