Wavelength
Platinum Member
Seriously? Proper technique dictates getting the stick *off* the drum or cymbal as quickly as possible and letting the struck object do the vibrating, not the stick. "Singing sticks" will get you nothing but a trip to the doctor and some nasty, painful surgery for carpel tunnel syndrome.
A freely resonating stick implicates that the grip has to be extremely loose. Therefore, the more the stick resonates, the looser and the healthier your grip is, and the quicker the stick is able to rebound off the head. Would you mind explaining how a loose grip can cause CTS?
(...) implying that the material the stick is made of contributes greatly to the sound of a drum or cymbal sounds like voodoo to me. Your grip should be loose to keep from transferring vibrations into your wrists and elbows, not to channel some mystical magical force. It just doesn't exist.
If your grip is tight, the stick's vibrations are absorbed into the hand; if it's loose the stick's vibrations dissipate naturally as audible resonance. Try this: grip your sticks hard, then strike them against one another. Then grip them as loosely as possible and repeat the process. You should hear a clear difference in tone and resonance, and you should definitely do the same experiment with your ride cymbal. Another experiment you should do is to buy a pair of maple sticks and see how they sound.
The stick you use has a huge impact on the sounds of your cymbals and rim clicks. There's absolutely no mystery in it. If different striking implement materials didn't have any effect, then how come mallets, rods, brushes, sticks, hands etc. sound totally different?