Tiger Bill’s Speed Lesson #53: Developing the Weak Hand - Part 4
How is your weak hand coming along? By now you should be noticing a great deal of progress toward your final goal of being able to play with equal speed, power, endurance, and precision with either hand. This month we'll add another 9 minutes of practice time to your workout!
If you missed any of the three previous lessons, please go to the lesson section at DrumMagazine.com and work on those first. These exercises were designed specifically to give you the maximum benefit when practiced in the correct numerical order.
Video Lesson
Study the written exercises below before accessing the video clip. The line marked S is to be played with your strong hand and the line marked W is played with your weak hand. By now you should have lots of metronome times written in your notebook and you should try to increase your metronome tempo nearly every day, even if you increase it only by one or two bpms.
If you have been following my instructions over the past three lessons, you should now be practicing all three lessons of the series (18 exercises) for 3 minutes per exercise for a total non-stop practice time of 27 minutes. This month we add another 3 exercises to our practice routine, at 3 minutes per exercise, for a total of 36 minutes! To get the most benefit from these exercises, you should now be practicing non-stop for a full 36 minutes each day.
Additional Workouts
Once you get good at practicing these three exercises with your strong and weak hands as explained above, you should reverse the sticking and play the Strong (S) line with your weak hand and the Weak (W) line with your strong hand. You won't have to devote nearly as much practice time but this variation will help keep both of your hands balanced and equal in speed, power, endurance, and precision. At this point in your study, this will add an additional 36 minutes to your practice time for a grand total of 72 minutes! If you have the time to play for 72 minutes non-stop, great! Go for it! If not, just continue to practice in 36 minute increments. Either way, you will gradually develop both endurance and speed through regular daily practice. For more information on drumming without tension, visit TensionFreeDrumming.com.
Questions on this month's lesson can be sent to me at .
Until next time: Stay loose and have fun!
Tiger Bill Meligari