Hi, welcome back. This is week eight drum lessons in the musical. This week, we're going to expand on playing quarter notes and eighth notes. This time, we're going to work on playing around the kid away from you, and then back towards the center. Because of the drums each give off a slightly different tone because of the size and depth of them. It's a nice musical thing to be able to move from the snare drum to the rack tom to the floor tom and also to be able to move in the opposite direction.

Now, when we're going from the center, up and over, it's important to start with your right hand so that when you're finished, if you go right, left, right, left, your right hand is ready to move in the direction which you're going. And the same is true but opposite when we move Moving in the other direction. If you're going to start on the floor tom and move to the rack tom and back to the snare, it's important to start with your left hand. So you have left, right, left, right, which leaves your left hand open to reach over here. At the tempo, we're doing the side, it may not seem like such a big deal. But when you start playing very fast, complicated patterns, having your the correct hand free to move a millisecond early, can make the difference between being able to play the fill and not.

So it's really important to practice the fundamentals early on correctly. So when you think about going to the right, start with your right hand, and when you think about going to the left, start with your left hand. And remember, we're always moving in flow. So we're doing this even at a slow tempo to give yourself the best chance to be able to do it. The other thing to be working on is alternating between quarter notes and eighth notes. And like I mentioned last week, really important to pay attention to how it feels inside when you're switching between quarter notes and eighth notes.

And also now the new dimension of moving your arms while switching between a slower pattern to a faster pattern or the other way around. Because as your body reaches out and especially reaching over your whole, the way your body mechanically is working changes, especially when you're on the floor tom, your left arm, sorry, your right arm is going to be in a very different position than it is when you're playing on the snare drum. So it takes a little getting used to feeling time when your body is moving in different positions. It's also really important Make sure your drum kit is set up so that you're not reaching and also that you're not cramped so that you feel an even flow. When I reach up to my rack tom, my arms are not fully extended, I have a little bit of bend left in them and when I reach over to the floor tom, it feels comfortable and I keep my back straight.

This is why the setup for your drum kit has got to be specific to you. And if you're playing somewhere where There's other people using it or you're boring someone else's. Make sure to take the time to set everything up so that it feels comfortable for you before you start the practice. All right, keep up the great work and we'll see in the practice video