Have you wanted to play drums and are ready to start taking lessons? If so, it will help to know what to expect during your very first music lesson.
Holding The Stick
One of the first things that you are going to learn is how to hold the drum sticks properly. A good exercise to do this is to rest your arm on a drum pad so that your wrist hangs over the edge. Then grip the drumstick with a grip that is firm and loose. Bending your wrist over the drum pad will force you to grip the drum stick in this manner.
The firm and loose grip is key to bouncing the stick off of the drum pad. Hitting a drum is much like dribbling a basketball, and uses a very similar motion. It's like a light flick of the wrist that gives you the right amount of bounce that you need. Do not be surprised to do some simple wrist movement exercises to learn the right motions, which is a key foundation to the rest of your skills.
Bouncing The Stick
What makes hitting a drum unique is the idea that you are not actually pulling the stick up when you hit the drum. Instead, you are letting the bounce of the stick propel the stick up with the energy that you exert on the drums. This is known as the free stroke, and it is essential for playing drums.
There is also the double bounce, which is how drummers are able to play the drums so quickly. Learning to double bounce the sticks requires knowing how to perform a free stroke. What happens is that you are adding an additional motion to flick the stick downward as it is coming up, so that you are making two consecutive hits with one motion. This will be a skill that you'll likely be practicing at home on a drum pad.
Playing A Basic Beat
You'll also learn how to play a basic beat on the drums, since coordinating your hands and feet can be quite difficult for someone on a drum set for the first time. Expect to start out with a simple beat, where you hit the bass drum on beats one and three, and the snare drum on two and four. You'll then incorporate the high hat as well to form a simple beat. At first, you may not stay in time with the beat, that's why you are taking lessons.
Share10 June 2022
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