Dropping sticks.

For me it comes down to a mixture of time played over the years, and more importantly, sleep.

When I'm sleep-deprived, I have a lot harder time keeping the sticks in hand.
When I was first learning and working out a good loose grip, I dropped them way more than my music partners would have liked.

Now that I've been playing a long time, it's really only a problem when I'm really distracted or tired.

What I hate more, is I tend to put more energy into the shows, and though I don't always break sticks, when I do, it's at a gig. Usually it snaps and I don't realize I'm playing with half a stick until I go for the next note.
 
Like most things, practice.

Set a timer that randomly gives you a signal over the course of a song.

When you get the signal, stop using the L or R stick...(drop it)...then recover.

I usually try to make it through the point of getting another stick in my hands by continuing to play the significant voices with the other stick.
 
My teacher always said dropping sticks isn't that much of a problem- it means you are probably being pretty loose with the sticks, which is good.

He used to say you want to be almost dropping them most of the time, any looser and they will fall out of your hand- just 1% tighter than that and you are golden.

What is a worse situation is gripping so tight that you aren't loose and relaxed.

This, plus:

Don't over think this. Just put it out of mind. Stuff happens. Don't give it another brain cycle. Cuz if you do - it will happen more.

Shake it off.
 
Dropping stick happens until one day you realize that you haven't dropped one since you can remember. Five mins later you drop one again.
 
Dropping stick happens until one day you realize that you haven't dropped one since you can remember. Five mins later you drop one again.

You are correct...................

.
 
I totally agree that "playing loose" is a necessity. But that said, I also think that 5 or 6 stick drops per session is well and truly excessive too.

It goes way past "loose" and delves further into the territory of "lack of control". Just like being too rigid is not desirable. Limited control over your actions is not a good place to be either.

There's a happy medium somewhere in the middle that I reckon is in danger of being over looked here.

Hopefully your last gig was an anomaly. Just be conscious of the need to exercise control......as well as the need to avoid rigidity and stay loose.

Aim for that middle ground and you'll be golden.

This. Done and done. Pick up the slack.
 
I never had a problem with it until I started playing at church all of the time. My problem is due to the fact that my sticks at church NEVER break; therefore, the finish wears off of the butt-end of the stick and they get really slick over time. Since then, I've started using stick tape (ProMark Stick Rapp).

My only warning is this: Once you start using it, it's really hard to go back to a regular stick without it. Although YMMV, I love the stuff.
 
Or acid......................

...............................................

Do people still drop acid? Can you get me some?

Also Pocket... isn't reckoning strictly an American cowboy thing? I notice that you reckon quite a bit for an Aussie and I'm not sure it's appropriate :)
 
Do people still drop acid? Can you get me some?

Also Pocket... isn't reckoning strictly an American cowboy thing? I notice that you reckon quite a bit for an Aussie and I'm not sure it's appropriate :)

Aussies reckon. We reckon all the time. I once shared a house with a Canuck who thought all my reckoning was hilarious. "Do ya rrrreckon?" she'd always ask me in her thick accent. I reckoned she'd obviously never heard the word before.

We reckon alright mate. In fact, I reckon if you looked hard enough, you'd find that acid you're chasing too.
 
Do people still drop acid? Can you get me some?

Also Pocket... isn't reckoning strictly an American cowboy thing? I notice that you reckon quite a bit for an Aussie and I'm not sure it's appropriate :)
Sorry, Larry, it was just a joke, but to answer your question. It is still around here and there.
 
Dang Bob "Dropping stick happens until one day you realize that you haven't dropped one since you can remember. Five mins later you drop one again." Oh god so besides art-hritis I probably have some dementia forgetting my past drops of of of.....What was I talking about? LOL
Larry don't drop acid looks what it does to your memory;) Hey that reminds me of acid washing glassware for tissue culture stuff. Oh I digress. Now I remember we are talking about schticks which I haven't had one in awhile and if I had a schtick I surely wouldn't drop it.
 
Something in your setup off maybe?

I moved my hats to a new spot the other day and there were sticks flying everywhere for a while. :)
 
Aussies reckon. We reckon all the time. I once shared a house with a Canuck who thought all my reckoning was hilarious. "Do ya rrrreckon?" she'd always ask me in her thick accent. I reckoned she'd obviously never heard the word before.

We reckon alright mate. In fact, I reckon if you looked hard enough, you'd find that acid you're chasing too.


Well OK... I guess I can't blame you. American culture IS so highly influential. But I'm warning you Jules, if I catch you saying you're going to head them off at the pass....well that's where I draw the line. I mean you don't see me going around saying fair dinkum, or barbie, or walkabout, or any of the other Australian cliches. How would you feel if I took something very Australian and tried to pass it off like it was an American thing?
 
This thread has been quiet for a while. I was curious if anyone had posted on dropping sticks after I dropped a stick last night. It was fun reading through these.

I'll add an interesting moment I had in a rehearsal a while back. I caught a stick on the underside of a cymbal and it flew up and spun around. I managed to track and catch it. After the tune, the bass player said, "wow, really cook trick you did in that tune!" Uh, right...

Here's a great video of Joe Morello playing Take Five on Conan O'Brien. He drops a stick part way through and then has troubling digging out the right one to replace it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kc97rN4Af0

I figure if Joe Morello dropped a stick on national TV, then I'm not too worried about the occasional drop.
 
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