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The term stroke refers to the motion that your hands make in striking a drum. This motion is well worth some consideration, as perfecting it helps streamline your overall technique, and can dramatically ease the physical demands upon your body. This allows you to play faster and smoother around the entire kit. So, let's examine developing your stroke upon the snare drum and toms.
THE SNARE DRUM
The snare is probably the most important sound on the drum set, so we should make every effort to obtain the very best from it. Positioning your snare drum is easy, and is done after you've properly adjusted your seat height. Once that's done, the snare edge should be higher than your knees, normally a few center meters (around an inch). This gives us enough clearance between our hands striking the snare and our knees or thighs playing the Bass Drum(s) or Hi Hat. Next, we need to tilt the snare slightly towards you, about 5 to 15 degrees, but not too far. If it's tilted too far, it hinders your access to the Rim. and your hands are more likely to make contact with your legs... Sit approximately 7 to 9 inches away from the snare (if it's a 14 inch snare drum) , i.e. The distance between your crouch and the closest part of the snare. Sitting too close is an all too common mistake, it's doesn't allow you to relax, and creates a constant state of tension throughout your body. So avoid doing this, it's counter productive. Staying relaxed is an import part of learning to play the drums! Once you've found your seating and snare drum position, lets define the basic stroke. The tip of either stick should strike the snare drum around the center, or a little past center (personally I prefer this sound) by say a 2 or 3 center meters ( about 1 inch). Both Sticks should strike the drum within a 2 / 3 center meter (about an inch) radius also, this helps make notes played with either hand sound the same. The physical stroke itself consists of three main parts, the back lift, the strike and the pull away. The Back Lift, should range between 75 to 95 degree's from the snare head (or 6/7 inches from the head), by contracting your forearms and pivoting at your wrists also, try to keep the stick motion straight up and down, watch out for any unwanted sideways movement, or unnecessary twisting in your forearms or wrists. (Match Grip Players, Aim for each hand to be a mirror image of the other. ) The Strike, is the reverse of the above, you simply extend your forearms and pivot at the wrist to make the actual contact The Pull Away, once the note is played, make a habit of pulling the stick back (in reality the stick will rebound naturaly off the most drum heads) to it's starting position ready for the next note as quickly as possible. This helps condition your hands for speedy note passages and removes the possibility of any unwanted 'buzzing' or 'Slur' sounds, created when the stick briefly rests upon the head.
USING THE SNARE DRUMS RIM
From the snare drum we can produce any number of sounds, it's a remarkable drum. Some sounds that are quite common include the use of the rim. There are two terms that refer to making use of the snare drum rim's, which are "Rim Clicks" and "Rim Shots".
Rim Click, refers to a technique used commonly in Ballads, it it produced via laying the stick across the snare drum head, so that it overlaps the rim. You produce the 'Click' sound via simply hitting the stick against the snare rim.
Rim Shots, are a variation upon the normal snare drum stroke. It's a technique that enables us to produce a loud crisp Snare Drum accent with minimal stick back lift. It's commonly used in Rock / Pop / Metal & even Country music, were a 'Fat" snare sound it required. The idea here is that instead of sticking the snare drum with only the sticks tip, you also try to strike the rim with the sticks shaft in unison with the tip hitting the head. If played correctly, it creates a powerful snare accent
THE TOMS
Without going over what we've just established, the stroke in regards to using the toms is basically the same, although there is some differences that perhaps should be noted. Firstly, your mounted toms should all be positioned were they are easy to access, personally I like my first tom to be about 4 to 5 inches higher than my snare drum, and the next mounted tom to be about half an inch lower than that, both toms are tilted back towards me at around 10 to 20 degrees. (Their a little more inclined than my snare) Your floor tom should be no lower than you waist, while seated, any lower requires you to change your center of balance to play it, also it creates extra distance for you sticks to travel, an unnecessary waste of energy. Once all of your drums are in a comfortable position, moving around your kit, should be a lot easier now. Moving from drum to drum is a combination of forearms and pivoting at the waist, try to keep your center of balance over your stool, if you can do this, it will help you be more comfortable while playing fills, or solo's that use the bass drum in combination with the hands.. (it's a must for double bass drum players)
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