Gripping Styles

It has been argued that the traditional grip allows more finesse while the matched grip offers more power. You may wish to experiment, but understand there are drummers who use both grips, depending on their needs at the moment. Some even switch grips while playing! The choice is yours, there is no right or wrong decision.

The Matched grip (both hands alike) is the most used grip worldwide seen. Almost all percussion playing cultures (e.g. Africa, India, China, Japan, Indonesia, South America) use this grip because there is no need to do it in an other way. It is also the most natural way of playing and it has been in practice for thousands of years.

The Matched grip really should have been named Traditional, because this grip, has been with us all the time.

Not only drum set players have to face the dilemma of the correct stick grip. The Traditional grip came into use when the players started to carry their drum (with the help of some belt) on their body. Usually their left leg. In this position it was very uncomfortable to use the old (matched) grip and players adjusted their grip to this new playing. This happened somewhere between 1300 and 1500 in Europe. This Traditional grip became the standard grip in all military styles of playing and finally was adopted the grip of playing the snare drum. When these very players moved into the jazz scene (around 1880-1900) this grip was used for their (rudimental style) drum set playing.

During the years following this period the traditional grip was in use by almost all jazz drummers and also all blues and rock drummers used this grip. The turnaround (back to the matched grip) came with Ringo Starr who influenced so many drummers in the great Beatle era. Before that time a drummer was often measured by his grip: Trad was OK, Matched wasn't! But nowadays even in the drum corps style drumming the Matched grip is widely in use.

Both grips have their strong and weak points and both have their own advocates. For the normal Jazz drum set - Snare, 2 toms, 2 cymbals - the Traditional grip is all you need. All instruments are within reach of both hands, although playing time with the left hand (on the left cymbal or hihat) is a serious problem. But in normal playing practice that was almost never done either! When the drum sets in use grew bigger (getting more toms and cymbals) the need for more (and equal) span was obvious and for this reason the Matched grip was (and still is) the perfect solution.

In the field of classical percussion setup pieces, players who were trained in the Traditional grip often had to face the problem of performing all kind of pieces in awkward playing positions which could be easily avoided by using the Matched grip. Rapid stick changes, movements over many different instruments (2 bars vibes, 5 bars wood blocs, 1 bar marimba, another bar with marimba by left hand and triangle with right hand....Do you get the idea?) are easier to perform when you can use the same grip for all instruments. For that reason the training of a classical percussion player should focus on the Matched grip.

Either grip is equally suited to play any rhythm but Traditional grip is sometimes the only way to perform good sounding brush patterns.

Right Hand

Whether you choose traditional or matched grip, the right hand is the same. Hold the stick between your thumb and index finger about 5 inches from the back of the stick. Your thumb should be parallel to the stick, not perpendicular. The stick should be parallel to your palm. The index finger should naturally curve around the stick as shown, almost as if you're pinching the stick between your index finger and thumb.

Allow the remaining fingers to curve in a relaxed manner around the stick (as with the index finger). They should not completely close around the stick, but should gently rest against it. Nothing should feel forced, but should seem relaxed and fairly natural

With your palm facing parallel to the floor, the right hand should look like this

With your palm facing up, the grip should look like this

Left Hand

With the hand perpendicular to the floor, hold the stick with the thumb in the "pocket" (between your thumb and first finger) about two inches from the butt end of the stick

Close your ring finger and little finger, then turn the palm up, allowing the stick to lie on the ring finger. The thumb should curve a bit.

Allow the middle finger and index finger to curve over the stick naturally. Keep the hand relaxed.