Can my grip be too loose?

[dreambeatlegend]

Hey I know you want to stay relaxed as much as you can, but I started gripping my sticks a little tighter and its dramatically helped me.... especially double strokes on toms and ride/hats... I'm not playing stiff. but I'm not exactly holding my drumsticks like a paintbrush anymore...

I want to know what all your thoughts are on this...

[bobdadruma]

There is really no correct answer.
The sticks should be held tight, or loose enough for what you are playing.
I constantly adjust my grip depending on what I am doing.
You should be adjusting your grip as you play also.
Don't lock yourself into one pinch tension. You are not a human vice.
As your roll gets faster you should just be using the rebound and the fingers while you pinch the stick. The pinch pressure should constantly be adjusted or changed as the fingers control the stick.
If you are playing harder and the sticks are coming up higher then the grip has to tighten up a bit on the down stroke and relax on the upstroke which is driven by rebound.

[New Tricks]

My thoughts are simply theories at this point.

My logic says that loose is good. I have been dropping stick a couple times an hour and I took it as a good sign. I had to put some grip tape on my left stick because it kept sliding back in my hand.

If tightening your grip improved your play then you must have been too loose. I have been working on my bounce and loose makes sense but maybe I'll try tightening up a bit and report back.

[bobdadruma]

Putting a ring of tape around the stick right behind where you grip is an old Drum Corps trick.
It works great and there is nothing wrong with dong it.
I still use a ring of tape on my sticks during humid weather.
If you are playing correctly you shouldn't drop sticks often but it does happen.

[toddbishop]

I think looseness/openness in your grip stops being good when the stick doesn't go where your wrist is trying to put it- or when there starts being some lag between your wrist moving and the stick following it. It's not always that critical of a thing, but when playing something soft, fast, or technical, the lag can amount to a significant loss of control and wasted effort. One of the things I've been working on with my own technique in recent years is learning to keep a controlled enough grip that the stick responds instantly, while staying as relaxed and light as I am with a more open grip.

[Pocket-full-of-gold]

My thoughts are simply theories at this point.

My logic says that loose is good. I have been dropping stick a couple times an hour and I took it as a good sign. I had to put some grip tape on my left stick because it kept sliding back in my hand.

If tightening your grip improved your play then you must have been too loose. I have been working on my bounce and loose makes sense but maybe I'll try tightening up a bit and report back.

Nothing wrong with that for a theory.

If your sticks spend more time on the ground than they do in your hands, your grip is too loose.....no doubt about it. Your logic is sound "loose is good".....but on the floor is useless. :-)

Loose enough to utilise the fulcrum point and make the rebound work in your favour.....but ultimately, you still need control over the stick.

[Arky]

Loose is a good sign IMO. I was dropping sticks regularly in the first months, but then it suddenly stopped. The stick dropping didn't bother me, I heard that this is a common phenomenon (at least among beginners - I'm 1 year into drums now). I didn't readjusted my grip consciously, the dropping simply disappeared with time/experience. I still try to play as relaxed as possible.

At first I had problems holding the sticks at the fulcrum point because my first pair of sticks had a slippery finish coating. I wasn't aware of that first and thought it was a grip problem. Then I bought some new different pairs of sticks (a bit heavier/longer, were recommended to me as a beginner) which coincidentally had a 'real' coating (the white Vic Firth finish) and it turned out this was the solution to my grip issues, the sticks kept staying in the same position. This finish is said to get slippery when sweating, but I'm playing at home (no excessive sunlight exposure), and my hands tend not to sweat so I never had those problems.

[PeteN]

Tommy Igoe talks about the need to tighten up or loosen up on the fulcrum on his "Hands for a lifetime DVD", all dependent on what you might be playing. He states the fulcrum is a living-breathing thing and it does make a lot of sense to me!

My advice is focus on sticking exercises that involve full strokes or accents, taps and diddles. You can also try 4 rebound strokes then immediately going into 4 tap strokes working your right hand then alternating to your left.

Whatever you do...try not to watch TV or be distracted while practicing this because you need to keep an eye on your fulcrum and to also make sure your sticks are moving as straight as possible.

Hope this helps

[BillBachman]

It sounds like you were trying to play double strokes on your toms "loosely" in a way that allowed for finger control. The use of finger control requires rebounds. Since tom heads don't rebound very well (assuming your tension is average) more wrist is required to stroke out the doubles. So in this case, yes, holding on to the sticks more allowed you to powerfully move the stick up and down instead of just pushing it down after it rebounded up.

Or think of it this way: With a deflated basketball you have to hold it with two hands and simulate the up and down dribble motion controlling it the whole time--no room for finesse there.

[Coldhardsteel]

You can tell when to stop when the sticks start flying out of your hands.

As in many things, hand technique has a lot of 'happy mediums' involved in it. There's a happy medium for both fulcrum tension and finger control, and finding it is the key to playing good single-strokes. When playing diddles however, that changes, but that's a whole different story.

Simply put: Yes. Your grip can be too loose.

[MattA]

As some have mentioned in other comments, the way I play requires different grip tensions. It's hard to make effective dynamic or speed changes sometimes if you keep the same amount of grip. BillBachman was talking about doubles on toms. I agree that the grip I use when playing faster doubles on the toms is more geared toward power whereas if I'm playing the same fast doubles on closed hats then I'd be much looser and geared toward rebound. This is where practicing on different surfaces comes in handy e.g. pillows.

[dreambeatlegend]

There is really no correct answer.
The sticks should be held tight, or loose enough for what you are playing.
I constantly adjust my grip depending on what I am doing.
You should be adjusting your grip as you play also.
Don't lock yourself into one pinch tension. You are not a human vice.
As your roll gets faster you should just be using the rebound and the fingers while you pinch the stick. The pinch pressure should constantly be adjusted or changed as the fingers control the stick.
If you are playing harder and the sticks are coming up higher then the grip has to tighten up a bit on the down stroke and relax on the upstroke which is driven by rebound.


thank you for that advice. I think that was my problem. I was locked into this one very loose grip, and I was trying to get faster at my rolls but it just wasn't making sense to me.