How to Recover From a Dropped Stick

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Ken Marcou and I’m going to talk a little bit about how to recover from dropping a drum stick in the middle of a set in front of people, what do you do? What do you do if you drop a drum stick? The first step is to chill out, you don’t want to get freaked out about it, but you do need to instantly think to yourself okay what is the most important part of this? Inevitably the most important part is keeping the beat not missing a beat but if you can compromise in your beat that you’re playing so that you maintain the drive which often times is supplied by whatever is playing the most repetitive note, like if you’re playing chorally notes on something or if you’re playing 8th notes on the hi-hat or the ride cymbal, you want to try to keep hitting that somehow so that it doesn’t sound like there’s a big void missing. You drop a stick, you play with your dominate hand, you know so if you’re right handed you drop your right stick your left stick should go to your right hand, play with your dominate hand and your other hand wants to reach down to a stick bag which sound be attached to your floor tom or somewhere close by so that you can have a second stick, again right quick. Now it takes a few seconds to realize what’s happened and everything so you just want to stay calm, play with your dominate hand, don’t mess any beats but fill in the gaps that you’re missing from only having one hand as best as you can this takes practice and there’s really no right or wrong way to do it but these are the main things to remember is to stay calm and play the most important parts which are your beats. We’re going to demonstrate a little bit here, if I’m playing a drum stick I’m going to grab another stick, I’m going to be playing simple 4/4 beat…now this was a lot easier than it could have been because it’s a very simple beat and if you had your coordination as up to a certain level of where you can easily play this with one hand then you’re not going to have a problem. The only thing that was missing there was the one hit on my right hand that was being compensated for on a snare drum, so it sounds a little bit less comprehensive but ultimately for a measure or two it does the trick."