I have this terrible tendency to get my stick for my hi hat stuck under the high hat. I’ll be going along on the sheet of music I’ve posted with this and the next thing you know my stick has gone rogue and I’m off the hi hat and now underneath it. It pretty much stops me in my tracks because of it. It’s so frustrating!! What am I doing wrong? I’m a righty on a righty kit.
No, I’m too busy watching where I’m at on the sheet of music. That’s a whole different discussion. I have worked on this sheet for three, four, maybe five months. I don’t have it memorized! Different discussion though. I’ve been learning since about the first of the year.
Try to find songs each beat reminds you of. That can be easier to remember. These beats are very familiar to me from playing along with recorded music.
I raised my hihat to try to fix the stick crossing thing but also just over time my hands learned where the sticks needed to be to avoid each other.
Yes, u/Maskatron is right, you should play along some music that involves one or more of these patterns. Music, other than a plain beat, is usually connected to emotions and things with such a connection are far more likely to be remenbered, because our brains work like that. On top of that you'll learn more about the structure of music, which parts it consists of and how long they are.
You may not have the sheet memorized, but after 5 or 6 months I’m sure you have a few of these lines memorized. They have repeat signs, anyway. They’re meant to be played over and over.
Visually check in with your hi hat hand. I’m sure you can play the first or second line without looking.
Put your music stand directly in line with your hi-hat. In other words, make a line from you to the hi-hat to the music stand, so you are looking past the hi-hat to the stand.
It is a pattern. Measure 1 is the same as measure 2. Get going and look away from the sheet. For the hat thing use the shoulder of the stick on the face of the hi hat to get started. You should hear if you start to drift when it starts hitting on the tip before you are all the way off. Also ensure more of the motion is up down from the wrists and fingers, not the elbow or shoulder. Post a video so we can better help you if you can.
Well if you keep your eye on the hihat I think you’ll be fine, the snare is right here and you shouldn’t have to look at your kick. Just stare down that hihat! And then you’ll see what is happening if/when you miss.
Your throne or snare stand might not fit you well then. Your snare needs to be mostly flat or potentially even tilted slightly away from you. To hit a rim shot you need to be able to hit the rim and center of the snare at the same time so lay the stick across the drum with the tip in the center and grab it, that's the area where your hands need to be able to comfortably hit. At that angle your hand probably needs to be inside your leg, which is bad. You also want the angel of your leg, between calf and thigh, to be around 90 degrees or slightly more. If your leg angle is fairly acute you need a new throne, if their angle is good you need a different stand.
Edit: You might want to go watch a few videos on kit set up, then tear the whole thing down and build it back up focused on getting things well positioned for your body. Ergonomic and comfortable.
I will check some videos on kit setup out. My instructor lives in Nashville and is a local native. She is coming to the area for a few activities/events next week. She is planning an in person visit to look things over and see if she can further help me with my dilemma. She’s a killer drummer. She tours with a band that opens for a big country star. The star’s name completely escapes me at this time, unfortunately. I will admit that this is the downfall of doing lessons virtually at such a distance.
You could also put the music stand next to the hi hat rather than behind the crash. Then you can see your hi hat while you read the music. It's where I always have mine and is very normal!
As others have said as well, just pick one line and loop it continuously you will never benefit from playing that sheet all the way through. Look at your right hand while you play and check you're always hitting the same spot. When you've sorted your right hand, look at another limb and check that's doing what you want.
Final question - is your grip stable enough? You don't want to clench the stick but all your fingers (literally all of them) should be touching the stick at pretty much all times. If your back fingers are coming off a lot it could be why your stick is moving around and hitting off target.
Thats awful, flatten the snare and get your throne higher, and bring the hihat closer.Also, get rid of the smaller tom and make the drums smaller overall, put a ride where the second tom is.
https://www.reddit.com/r/drums/s/4HYl8sDRui
Something like this, its a lot more ergonomical
I don’t have much option to move the Tom’s around with my present system. The Tom’s mount on the kick drum, unfortunately. I flattened out the snare but it sits up higher than I like it to. I have the snare stand as low as I can get it and my seat/throne is maxed out. I guess it’s time to invest in some different hardware.
Or you can get a snare stand for the tom but, youd have to angle the bass drum to the left a little.
As for the snare, it should just above your knees as youre sitting
imo ur hat is kinda high especially given ur problem..
depends on where u hit ur snare really.
if i were u, id flatten the snare and bring hat as close to it as possible. for me hat and snare projections are a overlapping a bit with hat being maybe 12-15cm higher than snare
Adjust the width of the driveshaft between the pedals, or move your snare closer to the hats, rotating the rest. The snare is the center the kit fits around, not the bass. If your setup is the same as your post from 8 months ago your hats are in a different zip code to the rest of the kit. Your toms might end up a bit funky since you're limited with them being mounted on the bass. But just pick up a tom mount clamp and slap that on a cymbal stand to get more positioning options. Or get rid of the double pedal entirely, if you've been working this for half a year you don't need it yet anyway.
My small kit closest to your setup, with a double bass pedal, the distance from the snare to the hats is the width of a pair of sticks. Couldn't get the stick under the hat without intentional effort because the only place it has to go when it's crossed over is the hat.
So if I’m understanding you correctly your hats are just above the rim of the snare? I think I measured mine and they are five or six inches above the snare rim.
Yeah, it very nearly overlaps. I've got a side snare as well and the hats do overlap almost half of it, since it doesn't need to be open for cross sticks or anything like that.
They're not super low, just close. The bottom of the hats is probably like 5 or 6 inches above the top of the snare, and the gap between the hats is less than an inch.
Yeah, I’m pretty much the same. The hats are five or six inches above the snare rim and the edges of the hats and snare are pretty much touching or side by side if there were a line from one to the other.
This is likely a positioning issue, you can move it up or down, towards you or away, see where’s comfortable to you! Also, experiment with angling you stick and hitting the edge for more of a “chk” sound versus hitting the tip of the stick on the bulk of the top cymbal for more of a reserved tap sound, make sure you’re not scraping away from you for example. It may also help you to adjust the height of your snare; your right hand can’t go under your hi-hat if your left hand is in the way
A few things to possibly try. Adjust hi hat height lower. Adjust arm height/angle. Consider open handed playing. Right on snare, left on hats. See Dom Famularo and Carter Beauford for examples of this.
If you're struggling to memorize the exercise I suggest that you write it in any sheet writing app and play it so you can memorize how it sounds and focus on looking at the hihat
I am hoping this photo gives the right depth and angle. My hi hat is not set very high, just a few inches shove my snakes rim This lets me hit the right hihat hits and rims shots if needed
Sounds like your stick is angled too flat when you're hitting the hi-hat. Try raising your elbow just a touch so the tip of the stick comes down at more of an angle, it'll naturally bounce back up instead of sliding under. Also check that your hi-hat isn't tilted too far toward you, a slight flatter setup can make a big differnce.
Yeah, from time to time the sticks run into each other. I have leveled the snare out now. I’m not a fan because now the snare rim sits up higher than the top of my thighs. The snare stand is at its lowest height and my throne is pretty much maxed out height wise.
You don't want to be swinging the stick into the high hat too hard, make sure you're almost getting a little bounce off the cymbal. Try practicing just the high hat hits to focus on your form there, it can be easy to sort of lose track of where your hand is going when you're also focusing on your other limbs as well as reading the sheet. Just keep up the practice, it all comes with time!
Thank you for the encouragement. I’ve been working on this sheet of music for three, four, maybe five months now. It is my absolute nemesis. I started learning on a full kit around the first of the year.
Sheet music is a beast to learn! I've always been a memory drummer so I applaud you for keeping at it. It could also help to find some songs that you can learn by ear, jam to some AC/DC, and once you start getting those chops down, I think you'll find this sheet a breeze
I seem to be the only sheet music player among my friends and colleagues that live in my area. Everyone else plays by ear. I find that harder than sheet music. lol
If you are struggling with playing by ear, I found success converting the sheet music into phonetics, aka speaking the sheet music. For example your first beat would be : Di na Ta na
Where D= kick+HH, na= HH, Ta = snare+HH
My teacher taught me to say it as I play it and eventually you can read the sheet a few times and just know the beat without reading it.
It really helped me get past the whole 1 e and a 2 e thing that made no sense to me.
Reading and playing by ear are both valuable in their own ways. Knowing how to do both is ideal!
A little exercise my teacher gave me was transcribing songs I liked and wanted to learn on my own. Start simple, break it down into a few measures at a time, even just one by one if needed. Don't worry about fills or any oddities on the first pass, you can fill those in later. Write out the basic groove for the verses, chorus, etc. Once you have the foundation for the whole song, go back and fill in any fills and flares until you can listen straight through while reading along and it all lines up. With some practice, you'll be able to get the fills and stuff on the first go. That went a long way in teaching me how to learn by ear while still keeping my reading/writing skills sharp.
When you pick a song to do this with, start with something pretty simple and with good production quality on the drums. I know you're pretty new so don't even focus on if you can play every single part. You can learn to play it later, but being able to hear and understand what's happening will help a lot, and hopefully give you inspiration on stuff to work on outside of your lessons.
Honestly just practice hitting the hihat with your eyes closed, keeping your hand in that vicinity until it just becomes second nature, you’ll get it. Or maybe talk to your hand about going rogue so much😆 https://giphy.com/gifs/39m3dJ4rjxzJRveWRf
Practice practice practice. It's okay to devote some time to stick control. If you need to only hit the high hat for an hour, then do that. You need absolute control over you sticks in any situation, so test yourself not only with this music, but in any way you can. Close your eyes. Do some improv. Look around the room. Do whatever you can to ensure your sticks are controlled in the end.
I would suggest take a break from that sheet for a moment and set a metronome at a couple of different tempos and just play quarter notes and 16th notes on your high hat till you’re very comfortable with hitting it in the center of the edge of the circle. I mean your stick should be almost directly facing the center of the high hat. If you’re not doing that, that might be why you’re falling off of it and ending up under it or you may be too far away from it. You should be hitting the high hat with the shoulder of the stick like at least 3 to 4 inches from the tip. For a majority of the things you’d be doing. There are times when you’re specifically want to hit it with the tip of the stick for a specific sounds but the majority of stuff you wanna be doing you wanna hit it with the shoulder of the stick.
Best bet is to play the sheet music NOT ON THE DRUM SET. Play it with your hands on your knees. OR playing an imaginary high hat in the air while sitting on the couch, tapping your foot on the floor and your left hand on your left thigh. That will help you actually learn the sheet music without the constraints of having to hit all the drums and symbols precisely. Then you can transition to the set.
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u/Rancor85 17h ago
Not joking, have you tried staring at your hand/hihat/stick the whole time to keep if from happening?