[Strawsticks]

Hey guys, I've been learning drums for about 2.5 months now, and I'm still not exactly sure which muscle should be used more when hitting the drums. My instructor asks me to use more fingers and less wrist, but I watch videos where people use lots of wrist and forearm too.

Let's assume we're talking about hitting the hi-hats here, not the occasional crash strikes, which undoubtedly uses the whole arm's muscles.

Sorry if this has been asked before... or if this is in the wrong topic

[realscotch]

It's all in the wrists.

[Vasheir]

Wrists and fingers, but if your instructor is asking for more fingers, (based on my experience with my students) it's because they seem to be too stiff with the rest of the fingers doing nothing, or they look like they're trying to have tea party.

On Double strokes, your wrist does the first stroke, and your fingers snap the second. You can use rebound, yes, but there's only a certain threshold where you will have to start using your fingers. Rebound is good just to get the stick back up to an acceptable height for your next stroke. If your wrist is on it's way up, then something needs to put the stick down, thus the fingers. Same thing with triples and so forth.

On single strokes, sure it's your wrists or whole arm if you want a power shot. But you still shouldn't look like a tea partier (no offense to the political group).

This post has been edited by Vasheir: 26 August 2011 - 09:15 AM

[Poco Askew]

All parts of the arm and hand can be used depending on what you want to achieve (see Moeller Method). For most strokes, wrists are the primary tool. For speed and doubles my fingers get more involved. For power/accents sometimes more arm (but I'm not into hitting really hard or beating a kit up).

[Dudewithlonghair]

I use my wrists for louder stuff, and my fingers for softer stuff. I never use my arms (except of course to reach something).

[JoepK]

I use for the most part my wrists. But if I want more softer and faster stuff, more in the fingers.

[Strawsticks]

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Trying to strike a balance between my wrist and fingers now

[ES108]

I've found that as I've gotten better, I naturally started using my fingers more than my wrists. My right, dominant hand is quite good with my fingers. left hand, not so much. I've also recently found, that using my wrist too much with rubber head electric drums hurts my wrists. I can play longer when I play looser, ie- use my fingers. And being able to use your fingers is absolutely necessary to drum at high speeds, imho.

[The Wrench]

Honestly, i would have to say all of the above, fingers combined with wrists gives you speed, but not power, so i'd say it depends on what your doing on the drums

[ajay]

For a downstroke, how do you stop the stick going up. You want to finish low on snare - say an inch above it. Wrist generally can't do it, Fingers have to do this job IMO.

[JBoom]

I used to worry a lot about this. However, in retrospect, I worried for nothing. Obviously what muscles you use depends on the speed you're playing at the moment. But I would suggest you pay no attention to what muscles you're using. Just concentrate on holding the sticks properly (for whatever grip you've chosen) and staying relaxed; your muscles will figure out when to kick in on their own.

As you've noticed, different people hold sticks differently and use muscles differently. You have to figure out what's best for your hands and arms.

[Strawsticks]

Thanks again for all the tips/advice/feedback everyone

[G22]

Wrists, with majority of manipulation in the fingers.

[abacacus]

The proper way to hit a drum is the way that's most comfortable for you.

[FourPieceMetal]

For some reason, when I go faster, my right hand seems to be used to just go with wrist the whole time, while my left hand knows to go to fingers. Weird, huh?

[DustySpears]

My technique is 90% wrist. I play a lot of really fast two beat punk rock and I've never developed finger technique. I hold the stick tightly with my pointer and middle finger, and the other two just wrap loosely around the stick. When I'm playing slower stuff my right hand on the hi-hats has more arm so I can emphasize on the quarter notes (or whatever else I happen to be playing). But my snare drum is almost always played with nothing but wrist.

[einarabelc5]

I don't think using small muscles it's a good idea.

[abacacus]

einarabelc5, on 11 November 2011 - 04:15 PM, said:

I don't think using small muscles it's a good idea.

Depends on what you're playing. At lower speeds, or if you want a lot of power, it usually isn't. If you want to conserve energy for endurance or more speed, it can make everything a LOT easier for you.

[einarabelc5]

abacacus, on 11 November 2011 - 05:39 PM, said:

Depends on what you're playing. At lower speeds, or if you want a lot of power, it usually isn't. If you want to conserve energy for endurance or more speed, it can make everything a LOT easier for you.

I've heard a lot of Tendinitis from drummers. I know Mike Portnoy has it and also Lars Ulrich.
In the Time Warp video from Mike Mangini he explicitly says he relaxes and disengages his wrists and lets his bigger muscles take control when he does his shiver technique which is the one he used to attain the World's Fastest Drummer position.
I also hear in the freedrumlessons.com Mr. Lionel say that if you do the burn exercise created explicitly to improve your speed you should feel it in your arms and not your wrists.
I'm not saying that they shouldn't be used AT ALL and that I'm certain. I'm just saying that I'm not sure that using them will NOT cause injuries in a long term.

In my own experience I suffer from Repetitve Strain Injuries from computer use and I've learned enough to tell you that using small muscles to do repetitive work will cause injuries. Small muscles are meant for control, not for heavy duty work. In my own body I know that I've suffered from injuries in my wrists, hands, chest, shoulders and back because of bad posture and small muscle abuse. There's a whole industry of peripherals to treat these problems. They're all based on shifting small muscle use to big muscle use.

All that leads me to suspect that is not a good idea to use small muscles for any activity for extended periods of time.

[abacacus]

Playing fast with your fingers IS about control. Very little work involved. Push the stick down, the rebound carries it back up. You aren't doing anything but redirecting the sticks momentum.