Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

--- "liberatusvirus" wrote:
> Yes, the wrist. That's the term that occurs to me.
> The action at my wrist seems to make the hand/arm
> connection undulate rather than hammer, if you can
> picture it. Maybe as you practice, you'll come up 
> with another way of describing it. It's not just
> an up and down motion; it's a smooth, liquid thing.

It's damn difficult to describe, without the aid of video, isn't it? 
The best demonstration of it I've seen recently is a small snippet 
from one of Dave Weckl's newest videos... the snippet is on the 
second disc of his "The Zone" release.

Imagine making the hat stroke. Start with the basic up-down-up-down 
arc. Now, after striking on the downstroke, instead of exactly 
reversing the motion in the up-arc, almost "continue" the motion 
down through the hat and sort of "sweep" it back up. You obviously 
can't sweep the stick *through* the hat, so it sort of has to slide 
back. A bit like cracking a whip in slow motion. Do that until it's 
starting to become fluid.

Now, the tricky bit. Add a second hi-hat stroke while you are in the 
return part of the whiplash, just using the wrist, while you're 
actually returning to the start position. You can make this stroke a 
ghost note (unaccented) or the same emphasis as the first downstroke.

Sorry, that wasn't the only tricky bit. Now add another stroke on 
the return, to play triplets. And then another, for sixteenths.

You're only making *one* overall motion, but adding the extra beats 
in as part of the return stroke.

Aw, hell. Where's my camera...

Stewart