If we look purely at the mathematics, on any given gig our dominant hand will play approximately 16,000 notes while our weak hand will play about 4,000 notes (40 song night, assuming you’re playing eighth notes with your lead hand and the back beat with your weak hand. If you’re playing 16th notes, then your strong hand is playing upwards of 32,000 notes a night). I’m not even taking into consideration all the additional lead hand notes that you play during a drum fills!

To add to this, the majority of what we play with the strong hand are consecutive notes and the notes that we play with our weak hand are not. Often they will have a full quarter note between them. Our weak hand really has no chance! We perform daily tasks with our lead hand so it continues to get stronger and stronger.

How can I improve my weak hand?

Almost all teachers will tell you that to improve your weak hand, you need to play through stick control and play singles and doubles leading with your weak hand. I’m sorry to tell you, but this just doesn’t work. You may see small improvements in balance, but you will not catch up this way. In order to catch up you must play a lot of notes with your weak hand. That is exactly what we are going to look at in this article.

I must mention that the path that we need to take is not a musical one. These are purely exercises to gain speed, control, and dynamics with our weak hand. I look at this type of practice much like the way a professional football player trains: they won’t get better by exclusively playing the game. In the off season they will work on sprint speed or lift weights to get stronger. You will see the same thing when working on this material. It’s not about being musical, but it will lead to you being more musical down the road as you will have more freedom on the drum kit.

The speed myth

Let’s dispel a myth. You do not need to push the tempo with your weak hand to get it up to speed. If you look at how your lead hand got to where it is, this becomes obvious. You consistently play a lot of notes with this hand – from the practice room to the stage, you are playing at a comfortable tempo but never really pushing the envelope. This is what creates tension free playing with this hand.

Most drummers that I meet have never had luck developing the weak hand but they push the tempo too fast and get tense. We need to bring the tempo down to a manageable rate and play relaxed. The most important thing here is the amount of notes that we are playing and that they are all played tension free. Obviously if we play too slow there will be minimal carryover effect, but what I have found with myself and my students is that if you are playing from 50-70% of your top speed tension free, you will see results fairly quickly with consistent practice.

The exercises

I would like to share a couple of exercises that I have used with my students to bring their weak hand much closer to their lead hand. Give these exercises a try every day for the next two months and I’m sure that you’ll see the same results.

This exercise is all played with the weak hand. I suggest using the multiple bounce Moeller technique to pull the accents out, but if you are more comfortable playing a different style, use what works for you. Play this at a tempo that allows you to repeat the exercise comfortably 8 times without tension. Do not play it with the lead hand! The idea here is to catch up!

The next exercise is to play a constant stream of 16 notes with the weak hand on the snare drum. I like this exercise a lot as it not only builds up the endurance in your weak hand but it also builds coordination and looks at the often forgotten left foot. Here is exercise #1 and #3 from page 5 of Stick Control read as eighth notes against the weak hand.

Remember the idea here is to clock in some musical mileage with the weak hand and to play tension free. Speed will come quickly with diligent practice. Give these exercises a try and you’ll find that your playing is much more balanced in no time.

In this article I want to share with you one of the phrases that Rick and I worked on together, which I have found indispensable in my own playing. When I first learned this, it opened my eyes to whole new way of approaching this instrument.

Much of what Rick taught was what we now refer to as “artificial groupings” – or in other words, grouping notes together in a sequence to achieve a predetermined amount of notes. In today’s example we will be dealing with sextuplets (6 beats to a quarter note) in one bar of 4/4 time, which will amount to 24 total notes.

We can group notes together in numerous ways to achieve 24 notes and every sequence will sound and feel totally different due to the placement of the built in accents and bass drum notes.

Artificial groupings are interesting to me because any drummer at any level can learn them. With some basic know-how and and a little patience, these patterns can be just as relevant to a beginner as they can be to a seasoned pro.

In our example we will look at two groupings – a grouping of 6 notes and a grouping of 3 notes – and they will be arranged 6-3-6-3-6 to make up the 24 notes.

The first pattern is the grouping of 6. This is Gary Chaffee’s 5C sticking with a bass drum on the end to round out the sextuplet.

Begin by practicing this pattern on its own at a very slow tempo. Once you have a feel for this, start to move it around the kit, moving the right hand notes to alternate sound sources (toms and/or cymbals) and leaving the left hand strokes on the snare drum.

Then switch it up; move the left hand around the drums and leave the right-handed notes on the snare drum. Eventually you will have full freedom moving this pattern around the drum kit.

The second pattern is the grouping of 3.

Again, start slow and get comfortable moving this pattern around the kit. Once you have the two patterns down individually, it is time to put the whole pattern together.

Start by playing it on the snare drum and bass drum with a metronome. Moving it around the drums should be fairly simple once you have internalized the entire phrase (if you did your homework of learning each pattern individually first).

This pattern can work great as a solo or fill idea and can be played at very quick tempos. Practice playing three bars of time followed by one bar of this pattern as a fill around the drums.

Now for the really fun pattern. This grouping sounds fantastic as a half time shuffle type groove. To achieve this, simply put your right hand on the hi-hat and keep your left on the snare drum. Play the bass drum notes as written.

A couple of things that need to be considered to really make this pattern sing:

1. The right hand will come down off of the hi-hat on beats 2 and 4 to play the accent on the snare drum.
2. All the left-handed snare drum notes must played very softly (ghosted) with a large difference between them and the accented notes on 2 and 4 played by the right hand.
3. If there is not a large difference in the dynamics of the accented and unaccented snare drum notes, patterns like this can sound very heavy handed and lose their groove.

Here is the pattern written out as a groove:

Have fun with this and take your time learning it. Practicing slow at first will pay huge dividends in speed and precision later.

These patterns sound great whether you use them as a fill or groove, but in the end use them as a jump off point to develop your own patterns. Try to rearrange the note groupings. There is nothing stopping you from playing this as a 6-3-3-6-6 pattern, for example. Make it your own. That was really Gary Chaffee’s intention with this stuff in the first place.

Until next time, happy drumming!

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