Open-Handed Players: When did you start?

JPW said:
When we play improvised stuff or just grooving with the band it's a whole body experience. Everything affects everything. It's not only the emotions in your mind that affect how you feel when playing. It's a completely different feeling when playing open handed when playing cross handed. It's really hard to describe for me. I'll just say it's a really different experience and you get very different ideas. Remeber that different parts of your brain control the different muscles so of course you will see difference in musical ideas.

For this reason alone I have been thinking about switching to traditional grip. Not because it's a superior technique-wise. It isn't. But because I'm starting to think that there might be more interesting musical ideas to be had. I don't know why, propably because of the "different parts of the brain are involved"-thing. But it doesn't matter why it happens, because it happens. =P
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I don't want to start any sort of argument here because I think that would be pointless - there will always be guys who promote open handed playing because they spent years on developing it and there will be others that don't feel the need to do that. Just that much: As a drummer who actually has done all these things like switching to trad back and forth, playing open handed, playing left hand lead, even playing a lefty kit for a while I can say this: Yes, you have different ideas and play different stuff. It also feels different.
It's just that at least for me, it doesn't feel as good, the ideas that I have that way are not as good musically speaking and the different stuff that I come up with that way just sucks.

To me this really is a simple matter. You can intellectualize it as much as you want, but for me the fact remains that anything I play open-handed just doesn't feel and sound as good as things that I play crossed. As a sidenote I have also noticed that effect when I see other drummers who switch back and forth between open and crossed.

I do see some benefits though, so I don't think it's a bad thing in itself. It just doesn't apply musically to me. It might be different for others, but look at Jeffs post (who is quite obviously one of the better players on this board) - I'm not alone with my standpoint.
 
SickRick said:
I don't want to start any sort of argument here because I think that would be pointless - there will always be guys who promote open handed playing because they spent years on developing it and there will be others that don't feel the need to do that. Just that much: As a drummer who actually has done all these things like switching to trad back and forth, playing open handed, playing left hand lead, even playing a lefty kit for a while I can say this: Yes, you have different ideas and play different stuff. It also feels different.
It's just that at least for me, it doesn't feel as good, the ideas that I have that way are not as good musically speaking and the different stuff that I come up with that way just sucks.

To me this really is a simple matter. You can intellectualize it as much as you want, but for me the fact remains that anything I play open-handed just doesn't feel and sound as good as things that I play crossed. As a sidenote I have also noticed that effect when I see other drummers who switch back and forth between open and crossed.

I do see some benefits though, so I don't think it's a bad thing in itself. It just doesn't apply musically to me. It might be different for others, but look at Jeffs post (who is quite obviously one of the better players on this board) - I'm not alone with my standpoint.
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That was really my point. If the system/technique you are using enables you to use the musical ideas / sounds you want it's all good. If you aren't satisfied, try something different. If that doesn't work out switch back. Only thing that bothers me is that we have limited amount of time on our hands to practice this stuff. So I like to 'intellctualize' it as much as possible to be able to use my limited time on the most important stuff, for me. I don't like to take risks that might lose huge portion of that limited time I have.

That said, I only practice open handed in a coordination excercise type of context. I don't feel I can get anything nearly as great ideas like that what I can get with more traditional approach. Even though I can play almost everything with left hand lead, it just feels wrong all the time and sounds stupid.

BTW (off topic) SickRick, which you prefer these days, traditional or matched, in terms of musical ideas?
 
JPW said:
BTW (off topic) SickRick, which you prefer these days, traditional or matched, in terms of musical ideas?
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First: I'm just not a guy who likes to think about how to spend my practise time... At all stages of my development up until now I always did what felt right at the time. I never thought things like: I have X hours of time over the next X weeks, how do I spend them most effectivly? I always just do things that seem to be right.

I did go through the Mangini-Method phase though, but only because at that time I thought it would be the right thing to do.

Anyway... About trad and matched: This really pans around in phases. Ususally they are a year of two long - for that time I almost exclusively use one way to hold my sticks and then, all of a sudden I get bored with it and switch. And everyime I make the switch I think: "This time it's for good".

Right now I only play matched. Even Jazz. The only thing I practise trad is rudiments, but I don't do that a lot :)
 
If someone is looking for the "open-handed fan club", it ain't here...

I thought this thread was about how people got started with this approach and where they are with it now. As soon as one begins to explain why they play this way, it appears as if there's an agenda being pushed in order to convert everyone else out there. Then the retaliation starts. All extremely valid points, but enough to convince the other?

It turns into something like a "You can't swing using matched grip" thread.

JPW,

I would definitely say that if it feels wrong - don't do it. The people I know who like this approach do it because it feels great and adds to their musicality.

And if it sounds stupid - one might question whether you actually can play almost everything with left hand lead.

Drum and let drum...
 
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SickRick said:
First: I'm just not a guy who likes to think about how to spend my practise time... At all stages of my development up until now I always did what felt right at the time. I never thought things like: I have X hours of time over the next X weeks, how do I spend them most effectivly? I always just do things that seem to be right.

I did go through the Mangini-Method phase though, but only because at that time I thought it would be the right thing to do.

Anyway... About trad and matched: This really pans around in phases. Ususally they are a year of two long - for that time I almost exclusively use one way to hold my sticks and then, all of a sudden I get bored with it and switch. And everyime I make the switch I think: "This time it's for good".

Right now I only play matched. Even Jazz. The only thing I practise trad is rudiments, but I don't do that a lot :)
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I guess you are a professional drum player then or at least going to be. If I didn't have to study and have other hobbies and a soon to be wife I would propably also practice like you do. But now I have to really organize and optimize my time to be able to play on the level I love to and to be able to practice the 4-6 hours a day I try to do. Though I see this as a phase in sense too that I have certain goals (not really anything like 300bpm blast or anything, DW has helped me to shape more reasonable ones) and when reach them I'm free to do stuff more freely.

I guess your grip history makes sense. I'm still not sure if I'm ever able to play traditional with the fluidity I can with mathced since I have fractured my hand and the bones are a bit different than they used to and they really restrict the radius-ulna rotation. But then again, I'm not sure if it restricts it enough to really bother. Time will tell.

I guess some will have same kind of phases with open handed playing as you have had with your grips.

What I really would like to know how many times these changes in grips and postures and 'systems' are really permanent or do we just eventually come back to with which we started in the first place. Usually the later is the case with hand and foot techniques. Although I'm a heel-down convert these days. =P
 
jivadayadasa said:
And if it sounds stupid - one might question whether you actually can play almost everything with left hand lead.

Drum and let drum...
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I guess it's a bit semantic question. What I meant was that I can play the notes as they are written, but the sound produced is different, because the microtiming and dynamic nyances are different depending on how I play. Of course you can make it better with practice but I doubt they will ever be the same, especially in improvisational context. It's hard to explain fully what I mean. Part of it is always the coordination problems but that doesn't explain all of it, it's the ideas that don't sound so good. And I also have to question if it really is worth the effort to convert fully. There's so much else to do. =P
 
JPW said:
I guess it's a bit semantic question. What I meant was that I can play the notes as they are written, but the sound produced is different, because the microtiming and dynamic nyances are different depending on how I play. Of course you can make it better with practice but I doubt they will ever be the same, especially in improvisational context. It's hard to explain fully what I mean. Part of it is always the coordination problems but that doesn't explain all of it, it's the ideas that don't sound so good. And I also have to question if it really is worth the effort to convert fully. There's so much else to do. =P
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I definitely get what your sayin'

Peace
 
Jeff Almeyda said:
"Crossing your hands is unnatural" is another argument. Who says? The fact is that when the hands are crossed and you have everything nice and tucked in you can groove and sizzle and pop like nobody's business. Ask Steve Gadd or Bernard Purdie. Tommy Igoe has been working with me on this for a few months and the results have been startling.
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I'll bet you didn't type this with your hands crossed.

I'll bet you don't eat cross-handed. Or drive. Or use tools. Or play piano, or guitar, or clarinet. People just don't do it much and I'm sure they have their reasons.

I don't advocate anyone changing if they're already comfortable playing crossed. I have always played open (left hand hats and ride) and I love the natural feel of it. I rarely cross my hands, so I am as set in my assigned hand roles and any typical crossed drummer. I do not value ambidexterity in my playing so I have never worked at it.

Ergonomically, it seems bizarre to me to cross the hands to do anything. Even crossed players put their ride on the right, so they can play open whenever they get a chance.
 
It seems I go against the grain here - I actually learned to play open handed (I'm a lefty) from the start THEN taught myself crossed. I wished I'd have just learned crossed but left handed - I'd be a far better drummer than I am now. I suck because I can't do a roll around a kit or I make both arms go for the same thing and the like - I'm very "Ringo" in that sense. I can keep time, but anything fancy - No way, José.

It's actually very weird - I lead with BOTH hands. Let me explain...

I play with my right hand on my hats, left on the snare. If I go to do a snare roll, or a roll around the toms (but not a straight 4 on each, I can't do that), I automatically switch to my left hand, then when I finish I switch back to my right. The only advantage is right handed drummer just cannot play the same fills as me. They don't know how because of how I play them (being technically ambidextrous behind the kit).
 
Deathmetalconga said:
I'll bet you didn't type this with your hands crossed.

I'll bet you don't eat cross-handed. Or drive. Or use tools. Or play piano, or guitar, or clarinet. People just don't do it much and I'm sure they have their reasons.

I don't advocate anyone changing if they're already comfortable playing crossed. I have always played open (left hand hats and ride) and I love the natural feel of it. I rarely cross my hands, so I am as set in my assigned hand roles and any typical crossed drummer. I do not value ambidexterity in my playing so I have never worked at it.

Ergonomically, it seems bizarre to me to cross the hands to do anything. Even crossed players put their ride on the right, so they can play open whenever they get a chance.
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I don't cross my hands either. Actually, if I think about it: I don't know one player who does.

You don't need to cross your hands to play crossed. All you have to do is cross your sticks. When I play a groove between HiHat and Snare, my right hand is almost above my right leg and my left hand is almost above my left leg, both hands just slightly moved more towards the center of my body. That way my right stick perfectly hits the HiHat and my left stick perfectly hits the center of the snare.


I think it's great to have a discussion about this topic, but I think it would be even nicer if we could leave out all the unnecessary made up abra-cadabra facts and stay with the real facts. Suggesting that you need to cross your hands to cross your sticks quite obviously is far from reality (unless you use real short sticks).
 
Though I play on a right handed kit, I am actually a lefty, so I do sometimes play open handed when I feel like it. But., I prefer "crossed" playing (though my arms aren't really crossed, just the sticks, like other people have said). As a lefty, I do lead all of my rolls, fills and rudiments with my left, which can sometimes be awkward. For example, with 16th notes on the hi-hat, if I want to hit the snare, I have to reach my left arm under my right. For that reason, I've been training myself to lead with my right hand when necessary, so I'm becoming fairly ambidextrous on the kit.
 
boomstick said:
So, I was wondering how many of you open-handed players started out this way from the beginning, and how many are "converts." I imagine it would be kind of hard to convert after playing cross-stick for a long time, but I'm sure it has been done. I wanted to make a poll, but I don't see an option to do so (??). So, I will just await responses. Thanks.
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So this thread was started as a poll and NOT as 50 reasons to play open-handed complete with rebuttles???????????
 
I taught myself the drums for 6 months before I got a teacher. I naturally picked up the sticks in matched grip and played open handed. Maybe this is because I hadn’t seen a lot of drummers, and I picked up the instrument on a whim, and hence wasn’t influenced by what I would have seen, had I paid any attention to how drummers drum. Interestingly, when I got my first drum lesson, my teacher didn’t teach me to play cross handed. I think this was highly modern and progressive of him.

these days i played cross handed!*

i bet you didnt see that curve ball coming!

true story :)

* mainly because i primarily play traditional grip, but sometimes do openhanded with matched grip.

Also my teacher taught me traditional open handed... very weird! you should have seen me and the other drummers in his community big band playing like that. I'd freak if i saw some one do that! haha
 
In case anyone's interested: I regard myself just a rooky, started 3 years ago, playing right-handed, although I'm a lefty. After a couple of months, I was feeling this held me back, so I switched to playing left-handed, but open-handed. So with the snare on the left and the hihat on the right but also keeping the ride right and the main crash left.

This seems to be most natural to me and I can keep my hihat very low, which I prefer. Some first problems were going from 8ths to 16ths on the hihat because I have to switch from leading with the right to leading with the left hand, but this came quickly. Most fills come naturally, but certain right-handed patterns give some trouble. And I'm quicker doing Moeller style single strokes with my left hand although that would be more useful with my right. It just needs more practice.

A downside is I always have to change the setup of every kit I play, I can never just sit and play. That was a real pain in the ass at a gig in February this year because we had to start playing without having enough time to setup the kit properly. I managed to persevere this short gig (30 minutes) but had a bad time.
 
eric_B said:
In case anyone's interested: I regard myself just a rooky, started 3 years ago, playing right-handed, although I'm a lefty. After a couple of months, I was feeling this held me back, so I switched to playing left-handed, but open-handed. So with the snare on the left and the hihat on the right but also keeping the ride right and the main crash left.

This seems to be most natural to me and I can keep my hihat very low, which I prefer. Some first problems were going from 8ths to 16ths on the hihat because I have to switch from leading with the right to leading with the left hand, but this came quickly. Most fills come naturally, but certain right-handed patterns give some trouble. And I'm quicker doing Moeller style single strokes with my left hand although that would be more useful with my right. It just needs more practice.

A downside is I always have to change the setup of every kit I play, I can never just sit and play. That was a real pain in the ass at a gig in February this year because we had to start playing without having enough time to setup the kit properly. I managed to persevere this short gig (30 minutes) but had a bad time.
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Have you ever thought of keeping a ride close to your hats, and playing ride with the left hand? There are some huge advantages to keeping the hats and ride close to each other.
 
I play open-handed SOMETIMES, I started about a year or two ago. If the song requires it or going in from a fill or out or playing some disco I'll play openhanded. or if I'm doing a bass-floor tom double bass thing. But that's it. I play both ways :) I play traditionally sometimes too for drags and ghost notes and sometimes accents or just play it constantly. Usually matched though.

Cheers
 
I have been practicing open-handed for a while now. I have been playing crossed for twenty years, and in the short time I have been practicing open, I have seen big improvements in my playing. My left hand is getting much better than it ever has been, and my coordination is improving drastically. I am still not playing open at gigs, but it will happen soon. It is changing the way I see the drum kit in front of me and the way I connect to it. Clause Hessler's book is fantastic too.
 
Deathmetalconga said:
Have you ever thought of keeping a ride close to your hats, and playing ride with the left hand? There are some huge advantages to keeping the hats and ride close to each other.
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Yeah, I already do, I attached a pic of my setup.
 

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Great topic !
I'm a left-handed drummer that plays a righty set-up. I started playing drums late in life at 28 and started with a traditional lefty set-up but 6 months in I got injured and really couldnt play bass drum with my left foot at all so I switched over and played with my right. At first it as very tough to keep a groove consistent but with a little practice it became easier however my right foot has always felt a little weak. Nice even 16th notes are always a challenge (I only play single pedal) but my hi-hat work is pretty strong with my left foot. I also have a hard time playing 16ths on the high hat - seems there just isn't enough room to move my left stick onto the snare drum - not impossible but barely comfortable. Anybody have similar problems? Anybody know specific exercises to develop a weak right foot for bass pedal ? Thanks y'all
 
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