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Giovanni says to practice using both hands with equal intent--so I try to give equal time during practice, reversing all my exercises.

From the more experienced players, I'm wondering if it's a good idea to do this even when I've not progressed very far with the strong hand. For example, suppose in a particular exercise the right hand plays bass then slap. This is still hard for me to do and still get a slap (it may be QUITE a while before I can do this). Should I still spend some time working on it with the left hand as well? That's what I've been doing.

off course you should practise both hands, both hands have to be equal in strenght and playability, i also reverse all the exercises, and found its a grat way to practice both strengh and durability etc. , even if its hard you should spend equal time on both hands, on all exercises,(my oppinion).
keep on practicing

Thanks. That's good, because otherwise I'd be hard-pressed to get 2 hours of practice in at all, unless I sat there and did the same tumbao rhythm all night.

I also reverse some excercises, and I do give due attention to both hands, but not neccessarily even amounts. I will play a reverse tumbao for a while my weak hand, but will spend more time playing my natural hand coordination, practicing clean consistent sounds and various variations.
-bb

That's my story as well--I have to get back to the 'normal' hands frequently enough so I don't get too discouraged!

i also practice reverse when i play tumboa with are jazz ensemble it's a good way to get in a about 45 min. of practice and since it happens regulary it shows a difference quickly. i recomend doing left hand lead and reversing exercizes for drum set and snare drum too. its great for independence!

Last night for the first time I tried tumbao reversals at each double-open stroke, as follows

h-t-s-t-h-t-s-s-h-t-s-t-h-t-s-s
L-L-r-L-L-L-r-L-r-r-L-r-r-r-L-r

It certainly makes getting tone from the left hand a challenge.



Edited By Bongo Boy on Mar. 28 2002 at 14:58

HERE IS ANOTHER SIMPLE ALTERNATING HAND EXERCISE..
TT SS TT PP Tone-tone Slap-Slap tone-tone-Palm-palm.
RL RL RL RL then reverse it.LR LR LR LR. THIS IS ACTUALLY A JIMBE PATTERN BUT WORKS VERY WELL AS AN EXERCISE FOR BOTH HANDS WHEN ALTERNATING. ALWAYS WORK FOR SPEED WHEN ATTEMPTING THIS PATTERN... LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!.... AT YOUR SERVICE....JC JOHNNY CONGA....

I once read a story about Max Roach, the great jazz drummer. Apparently as a journeyman player he asked an old teacher to give him some specific exercises to improve his left hand technique. Max's teacher replied, "forget kit exercises, just do this: whenever you reach for your keys and open the front door, use your left hand; whenever you pick up a record to put it on the player, use your left hand; whenever you write, try using your left hand'. Max is said to have tried all this not for weeks nor months but years, and he later put his polyrhythms down partly to this simple coaxing.

I think the above approach can be useful for any percussionist, the writing part is tricky, though - try it!


Regards

Simon B

OK, so what if you have a stronger hand. I have a right hand that can double to make up for the left hand, and a lot of the patterns i see have a dominant hand (right mostly). Does it make you a bad player to have a stronger hand?

I sort of knoe the answer, but want to see if others think the same.

I don't believe anyone who says that, for a given task, their hands are equal in strength or skill. There are very few truly ambidextrous people in the world.

Many conga patterns do emphasize the strong hand. However, when you begin to move to three or more drums, particularly positioned in a V pattern (conga, quinto, tumba), it pays to have a "strong" weak hand.

Personally, I do most exercises with both hands. I use a metronome. Although my weak hand is slower, it gets consistently better. After months of practice, I can play a passible mambo (tumbao) with my weak hand playing the shuffle. You can imagine how many neat improv things you can do alternating which hand plays the shuffle.

Johnny's exercise is great for making sure that you are getting the essential sounds with both hands. Through careful listening and practice, you can make both hands sound close to the same. This took me years on the snare drum. However, once you can pull that off, single and double stroke rolls sound smooth and even. I am still in search of that even sound on the congas.

My humble $0.02,

Zach

I'm sure everyone has a strong hand as you say - though I think over time this strength translates into comfort and fluidity rather than way the stroke is played. I feel that my weak hand can now get the same sounds as my strong, but like every righty I will given choice do a tumbou with the left hand playing the heel-toe. I got a lot of reversed hand practice in when I played with a Salsa group in which the band leader only allowed simple tumbou patterns (this was for my own good because I used to try and over-complicate): a lot of numbers I just sat on reversed hand tumbou; the limp left-slap didn't matter because the sound system was bad enough to prevent people hearing much conga anyway!