- hace 4 días
In this technique lesson, I break down traditional grip in-depth and give you some variations and exercises to help develop more control and precision.
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:28 Snare Position
3:24 Starting Grip
6:08 Open Position
9:16 Closed Position
11:12 4-Point Control
12:49 Moeller Strokes
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00:02Welcome in guys, Austin here, and today I'm going to teach you how to play traditional grip.
00:07I've been getting a lot of requests for this recently, so I'm going to break it down and show you
00:11pretty much everything I know.
00:13Now I'm not going to get into the debate between traditional and matched in this video.
00:17We can definitely start that debate down in the comments if you want.
00:20But instead I really just want to focus on traditional technique itself and show you how to get into it
00:25if you're serious about learning it.
00:26Now before we get into the actual grip itself, the first thing you need to address is your snare drum
00:32positioning because it's going to be dramatically different than what you're going to do with match grip.
00:36With match grip, usually you're going to keep the snare much lower and flatter from left to right with maybe
00:41a slight angle coming back to you.
00:44And that makes sense because it's an even grip in the hands.
00:47But whenever you switch over into traditional, now you can see the stick is much higher and it's got a
00:53more dramatic angle coming down with that left stick.
00:56So this low flat position doesn't really work anymore for traditional.
01:00So if you don't know this already, traditional was originally designed to play a marching snare drum at an awkward
01:07angle across the body like this as opposed to trying to come at it from here.
01:12They just started switching it around to play it like this.
01:15So I think it makes sense to try to recreate that a little bit with your snare drum.
01:22So what I would recommend doing is actually bringing the snare drum up a lot higher than you normally would
01:27and trying to angle it down and away from you just a little bit.
01:31And a good height to shoot for is right around your waistline.
01:33So if you take your stick and put it on your waistband there, that's a pretty good height to shoot
01:38for.
01:39And we're trying to find an angle that matches this natural angle of the stick.
01:43So I'm going to go ahead and bring this snare drum up here.
01:46Right now it's set for match, but I'm going to bring it up and try to dial it in for
01:50traditional grip.
01:54All right, you can see the snare drum is much higher now.
01:57So it's right around my waistline.
01:59That's a pretty good height to shoot for.
02:01And what you're trying to find is that optimal height where you can hit rim shots without your hands hitting
02:06your legs.
02:06Okay, now in terms of the angle, what I like to do is loosen up the snare drum stand.
02:13And I highly recommend you get a snare drum stand that has a ball head on it like this.
02:19You can go in any direction.
02:20I hate the ones that have fixed steps in a certain direction.
02:24Those drive me insane.
02:25So if you can get a ball head snare drum stand, that's going to make it a lot easier.
02:29So what I recommend you do is just sit upright in a nice natural position.
02:35Bring your left hand up, and then you just want to try to find the angle that matches that stick.
02:42And you don't have to go super dramatic with it, but you just want it to go kind of down
02:46and away from you at the same angle as your left stick.
02:49So for me, that's right around there.
02:54So that feels pretty good to me.
02:56So I just go ahead and lock that in there.
03:00And you'll probably need to move it back to center it up a little bit.
03:05But that feels pretty good.
03:09So now when you do this, you don't have to drop your left shoulder so much to hit rim shots.
03:15I prefer to keep everything upright and neutral and then just change the angle of the drums so I can
03:22stay upright like this.
03:24All right, now that you have the snare drum positioning dialed in, we can go ahead and get into the
03:28actual grip itself.
03:29So you just want to start by sitting upright in a nice neutral position.
03:33Let that left arm hang naturally.
03:36And then just bring your forearm up like this, parallel to the ground and palm facing inward.
03:42And this is your starting position for traditional grip.
03:46With the stick, you want to find the balance point, which is usually right around this position.
03:52On these Vic Firth sticks, it's usually right around that flag point.
03:57But you're trying to find the optimal position where the stick wants to bounce back naturally.
04:03If you go back too far, it's just going to die on you.
04:06And if you go up too high, it's not going to have enough weight in the front to come back
04:10down.
04:11So you want to experiment to find that optimal point.
04:14But for me, it's right around that flag point there.
04:17So you just want to start right here.
04:19Take your balance point and you want to put it right in this webbing between the thumb and the rest
04:24of the hand.
04:25Put it deep in there and then just squeeze between the thumb and the rest of the hand.
04:30And make sure that the stick is in the center of the head here.
04:33And this is your starting position.
04:36So you want to get control from here.
04:38And what I recommend doing is just making full strokes by rotating the forearm like this.
04:44This is the main difference between match grip and traditional.
04:47With matched, the movement is like this from the wrist.
04:50And with traditional, it's a forearm rotation like this.
04:54So if we start from here, we can just do full strokes, thumb only, rotating the forearm.
05:02And you want to get a full rebound coming back.
05:07You just want to get control over this movement.
05:10Make sure the stick isn't sliding around or doing anything weird.
05:17Okay.
05:18So once you get control over this, then you can move into thumb only strokes.
05:23So now, instead of rotating the forearm, I'm going to keep this pretty stationary.
05:27And I'm just going to be using the thumb to bounce the stick.
05:31And that looks like this.
05:39You just want to get control over this movement right here.
05:44And take your speed up.
05:46And just get control.
05:47Make sure you're not sliding around or doing anything weird there.
05:51So those are your two starting control points.
05:54Full forearm rotation strokes.
05:59And then thumb only bouncing.
06:05All right.
06:06That's where you start.
06:07The next step is to position the rest of the fingers around the stick.
06:11And I'm going to give you two different variations here.
06:14I've studied a lot of drummers over the years and analyzed their traditional techniques.
06:19And I've noticed that they all fall in one of two categories.
06:22And it's what I like to call open or closed traditional.
06:25So I'm going to show you both variations here.
06:28We'll go ahead and start with what I call open traditional.
06:32So with open, the stick is going to rest pretty close to the edge of the ring finger.
06:38So right on the back of the fingernail is a pretty good place for that.
06:43So it sits right about there.
06:45And the index finger is going to come down and go right on top there.
06:50And these are your two main control points in this open position.
06:53So the index finger gives you some of the control on top for the finger control.
07:00And the ring finger gives you the support from the bottom like this.
07:04With the pinky finger, you can just tuck it underneath the ring finger.
07:09And the middle finger can just come down and rest naturally on the top for a little added support.
07:15But the fingers are pretty straight.
07:17They're not curled back in any kind of weird way.
07:19So that's why I call this an open traditional because the fingers are pretty relaxed.
07:23And it's a more open kind of grip.
07:26Now, you can start to get used to the feeling of just rotating the forearm and coming up like this.
07:38Making full strokes.
07:41And one of the great things about this open position for me that I've noticed is it's really good for
07:47this kind of karate chop motion from the top like this.
07:51As opposed to just a forearm rotation, you can move from the elbow and really chop down like this.
07:59So if you need to make like powerful rim shots and things like that, you can do it from the
08:08elbow with like a karate chop motion coming down here.
08:11And with the finger control, it's mainly going to be coming from the index finger and the thumb.
08:17So they're kind of touching just a little bit here.
08:20And that position is where you can bounce the stick from.
08:27But it's mainly coming from the index finger there.
08:33But you can go pretty fast from there.
08:37That combo of the thumb and index is pretty fast.
08:42So I associate this open variation the most in my mind with Vinny Caliuta.
08:46If you watch any of his older videos from back in the day, you can see that he usually keeps
08:51a pretty open traditional grip.
09:15So the other variation is what I like to call a closed traditional grip.
09:19So now if we start in this open position, we can curl all the fingers back a little bit like
09:25this.
09:26And now the stick is much deeper into the fingers.
09:30And this is what I like to call a closed traditional.
09:32So now the stick is resting in between these two joints on the ring finger as opposed to up here.
09:38So now it's further down there.
09:42And the two fingers can come around on top here.
09:46And that's really the main advantage of this position is you get that finger control on top with those two
09:55fingers.
09:56So this is a popular variation as well.
09:59A lot of great guys use this.
10:01And this one, I feel like it's more of a forearm rotation position as opposed to a karate chop.
10:09I don't really karate chop when I'm in this position.
10:13I usually go open for that.
10:15But this one definitely gives you more control with those fingers on top.
10:22So it's really a matter of what feels right to you.
10:24With this one, I associate it most with Virgil Donati.
10:28If you watch his videos, he plays a pretty closed traditional grip where the fingers are much more curled back.
10:37The two fingers are on top.
10:38And it's deeper into the hands here.
10:58So you've got Vinny and you've got Virgil.
11:00And in my mind, they're kind of the two extremes.
11:03But they're two of the best drummers of all time.
11:05So both of these variations work.
11:08It's really just a matter of what works the best for you.
11:11So now I'm going to give you a few exercises to work on that will help you develop a little
11:16more control here.
11:17And the first one is what I like to call the four-point control exercise.
11:22So we have four different positions we can use to move the stick or bounce the stick in traditional.
11:29In position one, we covered right in the beginning.
11:31That's the thumb-only strokes.
11:34Okay, that's position number one.
11:37Position two is thumb and index.
11:44All right, position three is the two fingers on top.
11:48So index and middle, primarily using those to bounce the stick.
11:57And position four, we're actually going to rotate the forearm, go palm down, and use the two fingers on top
12:04to bounce the stick like that.
12:09Okay, so we've got four different positions there.
12:12Thumb.
12:14Thumb and index.
12:17Index and middle.
12:20Palm down.
12:23Thumb.
12:25Thumb and index.
12:28Index and middle.
12:31Palm down.
12:34And you just want to be able to move seamlessly in between all four of those.
12:39That's definitely going to help you develop that tactile feedback and that control, no matter what kind of grip you
12:46use or what position you're in.
12:48The next exercise is to just work on your basic molar pumping motions.
12:52And if you don't know about the molar stroke yet, it's essentially just a way to get multiple strokes out
12:57of one movement so you can play a little bit looser and a little bit faster.
13:02So in traditional here, if we want to play the three stroke variation, we've got down, tap, and then up.
13:10So the elbow comes out a little bit, and the palm goes a little bit down for that up stroke,
13:18and then it whips for the down stroke.
13:20So down, tap, up, down, tap, and you want to stay pretty loose with this.
13:30That's kind of the point of it.
13:36And as you speed up, the movement gets a little bit smaller.
13:46And it's mainly just coming from here.
13:47That's where you're controlling it from.
13:57Okay, so that's your molar pumping motions with groups of three.
14:02That's a really good one to work on.
14:03And you can also just do groups of two if you wanted to, so down, up, down, up, down, up.
14:20So that's a really good one to work on as well.
14:23And you can also work on your pullout accents, and a pullout accent is basically just a low stroke and
14:30then an accent directly after it.
14:32So if you're in triplets, you could play the first and the third triplet.
14:36So one triplet, one triplet, one triplet, one triplet, one triplet.
14:50That's one of the, you know, advantages of playing these molar strokes is being able to whip out those pullout
14:56accents.
15:01And that's what it looks like in traditional grip.
15:09And that has a lot of carry over into your double stroke roll.
15:19So instead of accenting the first note and letting the second note bounce out, which is what a lot of
15:24people do, like that, now you can kind of invert that a little bit if you can develop these molar
15:32strokes.
15:36So now your double strokes can have a little more presence on that second stroke to make it sound a
15:44little bit more even.
15:46And you can do groups of three, so one, two, three, one, two, three.
15:59That's a really great pattern to work on to develop double strokes with your left hand is just right, left,
16:05left.
16:12And you want to make sure it's not like that, you want them low and even.
16:24Okay.
16:25And just straight double strokes.
16:47All right, guys, I hope that sheds a little more light on traditional grip for you and gives you some
16:52new ways to think about it.
16:53And some new exercises to help you develop a little more control with it.
16:57Now, the thing about traditional is you can't half ass it and you can't do it part time and expect
17:02to get good at it.
17:03If you really want to master it, you got to just adopt it full time as your grip from here
17:08on out.
17:09Check back in five or ten years and then maybe you'll have it down because that's pretty much what it
17:14takes to master traditional grip.
17:16Okay, so that's my advice for that.
17:17And if you want a really great hand workout to test your hands in both traditional or matched, definitely check
17:25out my last video, which is the Creative Pad Patterns Workout.
17:28It's a full guided hand workout system.
17:30It's about 35, 36 minutes long, comes with a free PDF guide, which you can download.
17:36I'll have that linked below.
17:37So definitely go grab a copy of that and test your skills by playing along to that full video and
17:43see if you can keep up.
17:44All right, that's going to do it for this one.
17:46Thanks for watching.
17:47Make sure you subscribe to the channel and I will see you in the next one.
17:50Take care.
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