Pre-Traditional Grip

[Unevil]

Here is my issue--we just got a new drumline instructor yesterday, and I am going to be trying out for the snareline. In the past our drumline has used matched grip, but now we are converting to traditional, which everyone is sort of inexperienced with. Well, to start us off, he is making us play traditional...but with no fingers added. Basically the idea is to hold your stick deep in the crease between your thumb and pointing-finger and hold your hand out like you aregoing to shake someone's hand. The problem for me is that whenever I play like that, the stick forces the bones in my hand to grind a little--I just woke up, first morning after the first rehersal last night, and my finger and thumb joints in those areas are basically bruised beyond the point of playing somewhat confortably. (by the way, although it is jsut a hand motion, the marching snare sticks are huge/heavy and thus either hang down when you hold them, or if you grip them too hard they grind. Of course when you add the fingers, this issue doesn't occur, but he said we will play like this for a week or two...am I doing this wrong? Should no fingers grind at all 0.o? Hope you guys can help.

~cheers~

[ace76543]

i'm no expert but i'm going to say that that's probably a bad thing. bones should never grind together, they should move smoothly. talk to him and see if he has any suggestions

[trysthedrummer]

To start getting that balance right holding it like that as if you were shaking someones hand is a good idea. Obviously you need to work on your grip, no matter how light ot heavy the stick is, -

Originally Posted by Unevil

the marching snare sticks are huge/heavy and thus either hang down when you hold them, or if you grip them too hard they grind

- to let the stick bounce freely, not TOO much pressure that it grinds or hurts the small bones! Get that fine balance, are you holding your sticks too far at the end?

[drumhead61]

Originally Posted by trysthedrummer

To start getting that balance right holding it like that as if you were shaking someones hand is a good idea. Obviously you need to work on your grip, no matter how light ot heavy the stick is, -



- to let the stick bounce freely, not TOO much pressure that it grinds or hurts the small bones! Get that fine balance, are you holding your sticks too far at the end?

Same question I was going to ask...you need to ensure that you have a good fulcrum or you will definitely hurt the hand with a heavier stick. I started trad grip with 5B's and my first few days even holding it right made my hand hurt after 1000 strokes a day I could not imagine using heavier sticks! I would do as suggested earlier and talk to the teacher.

Best of luck!

[mrchattr]

What has already been said in here is golden. However, I also want to point out that whenever you switch grips, you can have pains and aches (not bone grinding, though) because you are using skin and muscles that aren't used to it. Practice that way for a few weeks, and most of the issues go away.

Having you hold your sticks like that, for now, makes a ton of sense. It is a great way to learn the fulcrum. If he keeps having you play like that, well, that would just be awkward.

[Ian Ballard]

Drumline and drumset are... as I have found ...very different animals.

A lot of these band director guys are very thick-headed and stubborn. You'll just have to do it his way, even if it's not a good technique for drumset.

If you are looking at Buddy Rich or Tony Williams' styles of trad grip, the one you are being forced to implement will work quite a bit differently, and in fact, Buddy and Tony's styles of trad grip are very much different.

The method generally taught by these guys works well for strict rudimental forms, since there is little movement from one drum or object to another, like a drumset. It's not particularly flexible, portable and versatile. However, it might strengthen your fulcrum as other posters have pointed out, as being something essential to making this style of trad grip work.

You WILL wear your thumb cartilage out and create numerous problems, unless you develop the "hand crotch" fulcrum with no fingers or thumb whatsoever.

[Unevil]

I would do as suggested earlier and talk to the teacher.

I talked to him about it, he said he 'sort of' knew what I was talking about and that it would go away when all fingers were applied...it doesn't grind so much when I apply other fingers (the weight of the stick is spread between them instead of that ONE area, so the pressure isn't as high.

Currently, I am playing about a third of the stick up as my fulcrum. So if this were the stick: (beautful stick, right?)

----------------------------8------9---------------------------------------------------------l
----------------------------8------9---------------------------------------------------------l

the 8s are about where my thumb lies...this feels uncomfortableish
the 9 is about where it feels comfortable for me, but when I play here, my instructor says to hold my sticks about at the 8s again. At the 9s, I still get quite a bit of rebound (actually, through an experimental test, I get more rebound at the 9 because at 8 the weight of the stick brings it down more XD.)

Another thing to quickly note, not sure if it is important at all or not, but if I hold the stick at 8, the end of the stick, (the "l" end) droops down even if I am holding it with a tight grip.
at 9, boths ends of the stick are about even, the stick barely drooping.

Now I certainly don't feel like interrogating him for hours on end about it, because this guy has been drumming for 15-20 years (playing traditional since he started) and I have been drumming for 5 1/2 years, playing matched grip up until this year. For this reason it feels sort of strange telling him that he is wrong about my stick grip. I don't wan't to keep playing like this (I know unharmful, constructive pain can be associated with drumming) and end up ruining my left hand because some guy told me to XD. Hope I cleared up any confusion/questions.

[tbmills]

i started trad last summer and after playing for, say 20 mins, i had to stop. no brusing or bone grinding, no, but serious pressure points on the base of the thumb and the big knuckle of my index finger, yes. it goes away the more you work with it. and really, if you play around the sensitive spots you learn even more about stick control with the new grip. i mean, in match, i can play with the stick laying almost anyway possible inside my hand just because i am comfortable with it... i hope you understood and i didnt get too far off topic.

edit:
with that all said, i play trad with that thumb pocket almost exclusively with the stick bouncing only slightly off my ring finger. my other fingers dont play a huge role in it; especially when i am trying to play with some authority.

[TTNW]

Hey Guys,

A question? I know the history of traditional grip and I know that grip styles and techniques are repeatedly debated but I've never heard anyone mention why noone plays with a double trad grip then...

... I mean if your right handed and you hold your left hand in the traditional grip manner, why wouldn't you also consider doing it with both hands?

Also, do you play in a drumline with a snare slung or are they played level these days? I'm honestly just unfamiliar with it.

[drumhead61]

Originally Posted by TTNW

Hey Guys,

A question? I know the history of traditional grip and I know that grip styles and techniques are repeatedly debated but I've never heard anyone mention why noone plays with a double trad grip then...

... I mean if your right handed and you hold your left hand in the traditional grip manner, why wouldn't you also consider doing it with both hands?

Also, do you play in a drumline with a snare slung or are they played level these days? I'm honestly just unfamiliar with it.

The only reason that the left hand held the stick in the trad grip was due to the angle of the drum so it helped accommodate that position; the right hand had no need to hold the stick in that position it truly would have been awkward to even try it so that is why I believe folks never thought of going that route.

I have played around with trad grip on my right hand to see how it is and it is just fine, but I prefer left hand holding it that way...after all it is the only way I am being taught and I am following the instructions of the guy I am paying...LOL.

[Unevil]

K, so I should be good. Another question, though. Although fingers are played 'on' the stick during double stroke rolls, usually the grip is loosened to allow the back of the stick the movement necessary to do the roll. With the trad grip, how do you 'loosen' the grip?

Also, no, we don't play with snare drums with the sling--we use harnesses for level snares. Our drum instructor mainly wants us to play traditional because:

1. He thinks it looks nicer, more uniform and 'classy'
2. He wants the line and people on it that want to play snare to have the equal chance to get the position, and balance the position more on how dedicated the people in the line are.

(although I like the dedication idea, it was a bit of a bummer because I have spent the last year brushing up on my matched-grip playing technique so that I could do well on the snare line this year--only to find that half of it was sort of wasted. (my right hand retained the practice, and a lot of the stuff was the 'mental block' kind of stuff, that is more in the wrist than in the fingers) This was also a big bummer since I have been refining my doubles in matched grip for some time now, and I kind of have to 're-learn' the open roll with my left hand--like a lot of stuff, though, it still retains the sort of same technique/motion as matched, so I can DO double strokes, just not quite so well as I can matched.

Thanks a lot for the help, guys. Any other 'tips' for traditional play would be appreciated.

[GRUNTERSDAD]

I m going to make two guesses here. First, that the drum head is a lot tighter than you are use to, and secondly the sticks are thicker than what you are use to. Both of these will cause pain until you get use to them. I notice that using my drum pad a lot after I started playing again after many years off that my hands hurt. the pad does not give as much as the drum head. So I did my workouts on a drum not a pad. Try relaxing your grip so that the pounding won't be so severe.

[Unevil]

although I think it is more of a movement in general, I find myself once again (with that single area) trying to restrain some of the rebound off of the head. We are playing at 12 inches so the stick wants to bounce back to about 13, thus the strain. I am just going to work on my technique on my pad and translate that to snare later...my pad is fairly high rebound, I don't quite have anything with more than that except for maybe my smallest roto-tom...and don't feel like busting any heads trying to get my drums tighter XD. good point, though.

[BillBachman]

When doing the left hand turning thing with your thumb and fingers sticking straight out the stick definitely sits on bones and is not comfortable. I have students do that briefly to identify the feeling of a good rebound in an ideal fulcrum point while the wrist rotates. At this point with the grip however the stick is usually about perpendicular to the hand/forearm. Ultimately this will not be the angle you play with the grip since the fingers would have to close way up into the hand where they can't effectively play the stick.

So, I then add the thumb which allows you to learn the same feel of smooth rebound at a good fulcrum point, but it allows you to move the stick to the proper roughly 45 degree angle relative to the forearm. The stick will now be against the fleshy (non-bony) webbing between the thumb and fingers and the non-bony pad of the thumb will be "driving" the stick. I teach them to play using mainly the thumb while leaving all of the fingers sticking straight out. (At this point they'll only be playing full strokes where the stick rebounds all the way up past vertical.) My students learning traditional won't ever add the fingers or play a downstroke until the thumb-only traditional grip is working with full strokes--they'll play singles, doubles, and triples where the thumb is the motor and every stroke flys back loosely. This will develop thumb finesse more than wrist turn, but thumb finesse (in conjunction with the finger control on top of the stick) is what sets an advanced player over someone who can simply turn the wrist. The wrist turn will come relatively easily once we add the fingers and start to expand the demand.

Learning traditional will certainly not always be comfortable with blisters & muscles learning to do new & awkward things, but do try to keep the impact off the bones!

[drumhead61]

As a beginning drummer I am being taught trad grip and I am predominately a right handed person and I am finding that I have to work with my right hand more to do my rolls than my left...GO FIGURE that one. My left hand has taken to the movements quicker and yet in the very beginning it was obviously behind but is rapidly advancing. IT is GREAT fun playing this way to me...endure is all I can say.