I would like to dive right in with a big word. Ambidexterity. This simply means the ability to use both right and left hands equally well. With drummers in particular, this is a very useful skill. Most of us learn to depend more on one hand from our early days and that becomes our dominant hand. A majority of people are right handed. It determines a lot of things, including how we set up our drums and how we move around them. Most of us assign our non-dominant hand to simple duties, such as playing back beats on the snare drum. There is nothing wrong with that, but what if we could open up our playing, or change job duties of different hands at different times? Think of the possibilities.
I am not the first to imagine this. Open handed players are less of an oddity these days, but I think it is still considered a rarity. Some drummers are fully committed to this approach. Carter Beauford (Dave Matthews Band), Gary Husband (Level 42), and Simon Phillips (Toto) are just a few more famous examples of open handed players. What about those of us who are already locked into that cross hand thing? There is hope. With patience and training you can develop your weak hand to get more out of it. I myself fall into this category, but while I might not be able to sign my name with my left hand, I am able to switch up after years of practice and working on my less dominant hand. With enough time and developments, you can open up some cool things such as left and right call and response, leading with your weak hand, or swapping lead hands.
By far the greatest gift that ambidextrous playing offers is the ability to hold the grove no matter what else you are doing on the kit. Keep the high hat and snare going while in the middle of a long drawn out drum fill. Dual ride/hat patterns are now possible. A more casual benefit that I use often is being able to interplay between the ride and hi hats in both continuous patterns as well as counter rhythms and poly rhythms when I am getting more adventurous. Here is a great example of how a little help from the weak hand can help really make life easier as a drummer! I encourage you to challenge yourself to work up that other hand and open up even more possibilities for yourself!
– Chris McKinney