There are many wonderful drum technique books to help with developing the left hand. However, there are many things you can do in your daily life when you are away from the drum set or practice pad to help with developing the left hand.
(If you are left-handed dominant person and/or player, obviously use your right hand as it would be your non-dominant hand.)
In your daily life, try using your non-dominant hand to do normal daily activities. Use your non-dominant hand to pick up things. Grab your glass of liquid you are drinking and bring it to your mouth with your non-dominant hand. Open a door with your non-dominant hand. Pick up and use your phone with your non-dominant hand. Turn on a light, open the window, turn the page of the book, stir the soup, wave at passersby, etc. If you wear makeup, apply makeup with your non-dominant hand. Without doing anything dangerous or grabbing anything valuable, try doing everything you would normally do with your dominant hand instead using your non-dominant hand.
Sometimes I even take it to the extreme of eating my food throughout an entire sitting using a fork or a spoon with my left hand. (If you try this, make sure you are sitting at a table rather than sitting on a couch. If it’s your first time trying this, make sure you’re not wearing a nice shirt that you could stain.) Then I brush my teeth with my left hand.
Anything you can do to get more coordinated with your non-dominant hand is a good thing. Every day, I still utilize this approach. As goofy as it may sound, try it and see what happens. Have fun with it and have a few laughs if it’s a little awkward at first. Anything you can do to reprogram the neural pathways and gain better coordination with your non-dominant hand is helpful. This technique will make you realize that you don’t always have to use your dominant hand and that your non-dominant hand works just fine.
“Stick Control”, “Master Studies”, “Developing Dexterity”, “Sticking Patterns”, and “The Weaker Side” are all wonderful books that have lots of valuable exercises and lessons to help with developing the left hand. When you sit down to practice drum and/or stick technique, use the exercises in these classic books to help with developing your left hand.
Not only is using your non-dominant hand good for your drum technique, it is also good for your brain. Check out some of these articles:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-56956-0
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4903896/
(© 2021 Ryan Sapp – www.drummountain.net)