Are your drumming practices up to speed? A good drummer knows that drumming is more than just quality kits and sticks. Your speed also plays an important factor.
In this short article, we will cover a few exercises, and hand speed drills to help you increase your drumming speed. So grab your sticks and get ready.
Hand Speed Drills and Exercises
These exercises help strengthen your hands and wrist as well as your grip. These can help you start to build up your speed during your practice sessions. They also help you get ready to step on stage for gigs.
Stretching
Stretching is very important to a drummer. It should be the first thing you do before any practice or gig. It helps loosen your muscles and get them ready to work.
First, extend your arm with your palm facing up. Then using your other hand push your fingers back as far as you can. You should feel the muscles in your hand, wrist, and forearm stretching.
After doing this on both arms do this process again with your palms facing down. Then with your other hand pull your fingers back towards you.
Increase Grip Strength
Increasing your grip strength can help with controlling your sticks better and helping you nail those tricky patterns. You can improve your grip using a tennis ball, or even a bag of rice.
While watching tv or relaxing, try to squeeze your chosen object as many times as you can for three sets. Or you can hold a tight grip for ten seconds at a time.
Your grip is an essential part of drumming. If you need some extra help check out this article.
Increase Wrist Control
By practicing on a surface that won’t bounce back you can help increase your wrist control. You can do this with a pillow or even just on your couch. This exercise will help you not depend as much on your drums bounce back momentum.
Finger Coordination
Finger coordination can help your fingers work independently of each other. This makes it easier to control your sticks and to pivot them.
You can do a simple exercise by using a metronome and tapping each finger alone for a few beats then move on to the next.
Practice Rudiments
Yeah, you knew this one was coming. Triplets, paradiddles, and the like may be boring but are an integral part of proper drumming. And the more you practice these and become more comfortable, you can begin to build speed playing them.
These are going to be the best hand speed drills you can do. Don’t know any rudiments? That’s a shame, check out this site and get practicing.
Get Inspired
On top of all this, your best method to get faster is practice, practice, practice. We hope you gain some insight about hand speed drills from this article.
Don’t forget to check out our other helpful blog post like this one. And when you’re ready to step up on stage, make sure your kit looks it’s best with one of our custom bass heads.