Hand conditioners

[Nikk]

What hand exercises have really helped you guys?

[XNavyDrummer]

In the past I worked out of the Stone book, playing everything at painfully soft levels along with a metronome. I also did the practicing doubles routine on a drum throne or pillow.

Now I'm sorting through the Weckl/Gruber/Moeller stuff along with Dave's approach to wrist strokes, double strokes, finger strokes and the hand and feet combinations. This is a radical departure for me from my earlier approach but it seems to be making a positive impact on my playing.

[beats]

the first 30 pgs. of dom famularos motions and emotions has great exercises.doms approach 2 the hands is like Grubers.i think freddie taught dom 4 a bit. funny,these days i need alot of warmup (30.mins) b4 sittin at drumset.when i was a teen i could get away w. 10 min. of warmup.

[Josiah83]

hey ya know i wish i had gone through all those books, the classics.. stick control and such.. but i'm one of the new/younger genration and really, i haven't even done any of them. I just practiced rudiments and had some friends that weant to DCI level stuff so i copied from them various things.. I'd like to say I have good hands.. not where I'd like, but.. being at PIT and having Bone (gary garbitini) for my private has done wonders cause he is a pretty insane player.
his take is basically, you already have the abblity to play fast and such, you just have to discover how. as far as singles and doubles go, wich are the roots of pretty much everything.. he teaches jsut to push it hard, basically treating your wrists and fingers like physical training.. for him, this has obviouslly worked.. aside from seeing vinnie and weckle, i've never seen anyone display that kind of chops..

but basically, he has me pushing the stick hieghts as high as possible, using jsut wrist, and hitting as hard as possible, 4 on a hand, then 8 on a hand, then rolling.. then the same as small as possible near the rim of the drum.. always pushing the speed, and pushign the speed hard.. same thing doing 5 stroke rolls and 9 stroke rolls..

that has been whats helped me hugelly.. along with running rudiments against the click.. especially over different bass drum and hh ostinatos.. i think that was alan dawsons theory..

that and sprints.. 16th to 32nd, 16th to sextuplet, and 8ths to (16th note)sextuplets

thats about all i do for hand excersises.. i get a lot of homework in various stuff so in the process I'm play all kinds of latin and jazz stuff wich has helped my indpendance..

I think if you just find a few set excersises that work well for you and dedicatedly practce them everyday.. pushing to further the limits of today from those of yesterday, you will see results

later

[Josiah83]

hey thought i'd post one of my more favorite hand excerises... enjoy

http://www.musicianforums.com/attach...&postid=594512

[PETE13184]

A thing that has really helped my hand in terms of wrist motion and speed and endurance is playing on pillows like everyone says.
Another thing is to simply hold the sticks in the air and play the air so to speak. Then do the same without sticks just to get a good wrist motion and to get you muslces used to moving in those directions. Get it so you can shake your wirst as fast as you fastest single.

[shedder]

95% of the instructors here at berklee do not recommend practicing on a pillow or anything that has no rebound. the whole point of it is to have good control of speed and agility WITH bounce, simply because everything you hit on the drums will bounce off. when you practice for long periods of time on surfaces like a pillow, you start to lose your control of rebound and the feel of bouncing a ball. weckl said in a recent clinic that speed isn't necessarily about strength but more about having solid control of the rebound. i think everyone has enough muscles to play really fast but very few have the skill of controlling the bounce of each stroke.
sorta like a basketball player bouncing a ball really fast low to the ground. he's not gonna practice on a soft surface to strengthen his wrist. he's gonna learn and practice on the same surface he'll play on. i think that consistency is important. plus, practicing really hard on a pillow causes your grip to tighten up and increase of chances of something getting injured in the future. my two cents.

[Nikk]

Shedder, you really hit the nail on the head, man. I couldn't aggree more.

[Josiah83]

that's an interesting point.. but how much rebound do you have in a your toms? It's more a matter of percentage of time then anything else, ideally you want the amount of time spent on a pad to be non or very little. Pillows are good at devolping muslces and tendons in that way, like using marching sticks to practice with. But the percentage of time you spend on a pillow should and wouldn't be enough to counter act the 99.99% of the time your practice on a rebound surface..

[Nikk]

Here's How Danny Gottlieb broke it down at a recent clinic...

Billy Cobham's school of technique is based in a muscular realm (practicing on pillows) Billy Cobham's drumming may not have much to do with reflexes. His speed is probably the result more of muscle training.

Dudes like Gottlieb, Weckl, and Morello develop their technique in a reflex-based realm. Thus, the pad or a drum is the way to go. They have extremely quick reflexes. Especially Gottlieb, sheesh...I witnessed him playing sixteenths on each hand at quarter = 160. I wouldn't believe this either but it happened.