Moeller Technique and the Bread and Butter Beat

Finger Drumming Lessons / Courses / Practice
1

Quick question for those more experienced with the Moeller technique:
Should I be practicing basic “bread and butter” grooves—when using Moeller—with my non-dominant hand handling the snare on beats 2 and 4?

I’ve finally moved past the lesson on practicing the Moeller motion itself and started working on the Police-style groove (the “kick + hi-hat” pattern). The first thing I noticed is that there’s no standard snare hit on 2 and 4 in that part of the song. So I watched ahead through the following videos, and it’s not until the penultimate one (“Chorus”) that I see Robert incorporating a bit of Moeller motion while mixing in the snare with the same hand.

Robert repeatedly says throughout these lessons that none of this is dogmatic — that we should experiment and play the pads in multiple ways. Totally agree. But I’m still trying to clarify one basic point:

Is the Moeller technique primarily meant for hi-hat work (and maybe kick coordination), while the snare stays with the non-dominant hand?

It’s a natural early question because a basic beat is one of the simplest ways to practice. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

-David

2

The answer is no. In “real” drumming maybe it is a little bit, but with finger drumming, since the movement comes from the wrist and you can hit multiple pads at the same time, you can use Moeller technique in all sorts of ways.

Hi hats are often a large part of the beat (like 4 hi hat hits for 1 kick) so in that sense you’d be playing hi hats more, but I do not necessarily associate Moeller technique with “separate out hi hat from kick / snare and left/right hands.

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3

I do use Moeller with my right hand by the way. I never trained my left hand to be as good at it, simply because it seems to not be needed in order to play everything I want. So it is true that the Moeller movement itself (for me) is more tied to one hand. But not the pads I hit with it.

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4

Awesome.

So returning to my main confusion, is there a canonical “bread and butter” style drum beat that one should use to practice? I note that it’s mostly kick + hi hat in the Police song, so I’m still thinking about whether or not Moeller technique requires non-dominant hand for snare on 2 & 4, though I think the answer is no based on your last two responses.

Perhaps hi hats alone or hi hats plus kick IS the canonical way to practice?

:folded_hands: Thanks

5

You can just play a regular 16th note kick snare groove for example?

KxxxSxxxKxxxSxxx where the exes are the hi hat. You can play any basic groove with Moeller technique as long as you want that Loud soft Loud soft alternating sound. If every hit needs to be the same velocity things do change because Moeller no longer works.

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6

Makes perfect sense. I got confused because you do that finger cross (index over middle) when you use the Moeller technique. For a basic beat, you’d have to undo that, which seems like a ton of extra work every two beats. So I figured that one didn’t do a full basic beat with one hand using Moeller.

Thanks!

-David

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7

Yeah the finger cross feels good to me, but in no way I am saying that I what you have to do. Playing a snare even with the finger cross is not a big deal, but I just do it because it feels stable and nice to me personally. No mandatory move. Maybe even better to not do it if it does not feel clearly better.

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