In the last lesson on timpani cross sticking technique, I talked about learning to cross stick and gave a rather simple exercise to practice. It’s necessary to start slowly and work up speed so once you’ve become comfortable with the basics it’s time to kick it in to a higher gear.
Cross Sticking with Kung Fu Action
To play very fast cross sticking patterns your stroke and movement from drum to drum must be very loose and smooth. If you utilize too much arm motion it will be difficult to play very fast and your sound will be dull and thuddy sounding. To play very fast cross sticking you need to develop your Kung Fu action and play your cross stick passages as if you were twirling Kung Fu Swords or something.
In this video I’ll be playing the following exercises and using my Kung Fu action to play as fast as I can play with a good tone.
First with the Right Stick Crossing
Then with the Left stick crossing
Start slowly and gradually pick up your speed to develop fluid motion, your Kung Fu Action and most importantly; your beautiful timpani sound.
love your post! Capo 19 is an instant caisslc last summer, i was asked by a friend to play Farsi music for a small festival. first off, i don’t understand the language. and second, the music is written from right-to-left! needless, to say, it was very tough. but an eye opener that i needed to learn so much more. and i was humbled even more a couple of weeks back when a drummer-friend ask me to play bass in a small comedy bar. the keyboardist was amazing! but our set of 2 5-min and around 15 10-sec jams were all impromptu. wow. good thing i’ve learned my progressions these probably doesn’t add value to this post but one thing i’ve learned with playing with different musicians on different genre i am not what i think i am as far as skill set is concerned and should really work harder in honing my craft.