There are two good reasons to learn traditional grip: 1) Brushes! Because, to utilize all of the surface, sweeping underneath one hand is very effective and that is very easy to do in trad grip because of the hand position 2) effortless playing at low volumes. Because the mass of the hand is underneath the stick, you aren’t fighting gravity as much as with matched grip The main reason I play trad is the various sounds I get out if it - it’s easy to change the stick/head angle and that alters the sound quite a bit. But hey, it’s just a tool for creating art!
I 2nd this. Ghost notes at low volumes with traditional grip while comping is easier to control for me. Nothing you can't learn with matched, just easier with traditional.
Actually, I've seen exactly the opposite argument for the brushes by Ed Thigpen in The Sound of Brushes. To utilize the almost-horizontal position of a brush, matched grip is easier than traditional. Hence I started practising that recently.
Mini Surf For me personally, switching grips is optional. Try to switch grips if u feel like matched is not that comfortable or you just want to try out different grips. You’re not forced to change grips but knowing 2 grips is convenient. Either way its up to you whether you want to switch or not
I used to play a combo of matched and traditional, but my private teacher (who plays exclusively trad grip) really pushed me to play matched. He's been playing traditional since he started drums, and now that he's older he wishes he played matched. After a month I completely switched to matched and I haven't looked back. I found I had different vocabulary with matched and tradition, but with a week or so of practice I had everything available with just the one grip. Matched isn't definitively better, but in my experience the whole "kinesthetic sense" thing doesn't hold true. Trad and matched definitely feel different to play, but I don't see that any different than the difference in feel with the type of stick, drums or cymbals you use. I used to use the excuse of being able to have a different mindset when using each grip, but I realized after I switched to matched that it was just a crutch to impose a "jazzier vibe" on myself. If anybody uses trad that's not a problem. If you're more comfortable with a grip you should use that. I just don't appreciate people using a grip to get into the minds of the jazz greats instead of just doing transcriptions and working on comping with matched. I'm open to discussion :) also, don't let me deter you from what you want to do. If you really feel it, switch grips every 2 bars for all I care
Great lesson. I took up drums as an old timer and have used matched grip simply because its easier. Trying to learn traditional and its a chore. But what the heck, its something new to try and learn. And it looks sooo cool when you watch the masters. Good Content Nate!
I mostly agree with Nate on the practicality of traditional grip with the exception of playing with brushes (which is a big part of a practical jazz repertoire). I was all matched grip all the time, but started having some serious wrist problems when playing brushes that way. I would end up bending my left wrist down at some ungodly angle or tilting my elbow up. So my first foray into traditional grip was for playing brushes, as it made my wrist issues instantly go away. Now I try to keep both grips up to snuff so that I have a similar vocabulary on brushes as I do on sticks.
it could also be your hand position when playing matched. I haven't seen you play, but it sounds suspiciously like you were using muscle to "hold" your left hand in place - i.e. a "german" kind of grip, and the more "natural" hand angle of traditional gave you some relief.
I started at 10 with traditional. Marching band we played matched. Concert snare in school I played traditional. I switched to matched on drumset at 18. Now at 40 I will play both comfortably at that. Glad I learned traditional though. I'd say it's really up to what personal comfort is.
Matched grip is definitely more ergonomic. If your playing multiple sets per night multiple nights per week this is very important. I just did a long stint of this if I was playing traditional grip I would need massive chiropractic care.
I use both, and it’s all about context. Jazz to me feels so much better with traditional, and I find the way I speak on the drums changes from the two grips. However, matched grip just has so much more power to it if you need it (and trust me, I’ve had to use that power before). I’d say learn both but understand when one feels better than the other
I learned traditional originally, and was never actually taught matched grip. This presented a challenge when I played bass drum in marching band, which requires something far closer to matched stick than anything else. So most of the time since then, I have made myself play matched stick by default - especially since I don’t play jazz very often. I find it much easier to play toms and left-side crash cymbals with matched stick. However, after all these years, my left hand is still more comfortable playing traditional grip - I feel I have more natural speed and control. I like to impress myself with how quickly I can change grips within a song. 😁
I changed to trad grip long ago when I had just started drumming. I could utilize the stick better with my hated, weak left hand, which was surprising. But I can frequently notice the advantages of match grip though. The thing I love most about trad grip is being able to play crazily quiet notes on snare.
Man thanks for your contribution. I miss your interviews with other cats, like the ones you covered in the beginning... Those give a lot of insight on how people focus this craft, that normally goes beyond the usual non important topics, Thanks again.
Some of the greatest of the great could switch back and forth between grips (used matched when they needed more power, etc). Roy Haynes is a great example of this.
For My On/Off Playing Which Is Almost 30yrs... I've Used Both(Yet In My Formal Lesson's In College I Did Feel That Trad Grip Presentation Constantly Manifested "Posture Problems";Not That I Didn't Learn Anything Because I'd Really In The Experimental Process Of Approach Grasp Substance Of It;...
As someone who used to play matched as a recreational drummer, but switched to trad when I got serious about drumming I'd like to offer a few things. I agree that ergonomically and technically, matched is probably the best choice for most situations, but that doesn't mean trad is necessarily bad for you, but it can lure you into bad ways. If you play traditional only/mostly, and you want to keep good posture, you have to do one of two things: 1. You angle your snare and other drums so that you hit them well, with good posture. That's mainly the snare, the toms less so, although I do tend to have my floors set up quite level, whereas matched players tend to have them leaning in. 2. You get over the fact that your stick will hit the drum at an angle and keep your body from compensating for it. You see a lot of jazz drummers play like this. Level snare, trad hand is just higher and the stick hits the head at an angle, big deal. Health is everything, Obviously, this creates a little challenge to play rimshots with the trad hand. It has the benefit of being able to switch between trad and matched easily. When we talk about the technical side, I will say that the main advantage to matched in my experience is that with finger technique, you have the pinky to add power. The pinky is often mistakenly thought of as weak. But I think it's quite powerful. I know it's normal that your weak hand is behind your strong hand, and for most drummers it's a challenge to get their weak (comp) hand on par with their dominant hand, but I feel that when it comes to trad, that missing pinky gives an added handicap. Then why play trad at all? I started experimenting with trad in my self taught days, so bear that in mind. I couldn't get good bounce going with my weak hand (only played Rrl triplet rolls) so I decided to try traditional grip to see if that suited me better and low and behold it did. Next thing I was asked to play in an industrial performance which required me to whale into a floor tom, continuously for up to an hour. I knew that without proper technique I'd end up hurting myself, so I researched and found moeller. I practiced it, and I managed to get through those performances without a single blister or discomfort. Of course, I could've done that with matched too, but I'd stuck with trad and it has served me well. So what are the advantages to Traditional grip? 1. You almost never lose/drop your stick :D 2. It invites you to play in different ways, being asymmetrical with the other hand also seems to help with that. Jojo Mayer describes this well in his hand technique video. 3. It adds the powerful thumb into the game. 4. because you have a means to support the stick from the bottom, it's easier to play with a light touch. Your ring finger will catch the stick naturally, there's no added motion of the fingers to catch the stick like with matched. It also means you're not dependent on rebound. I can practice finger technique with trad grip silently without a pad (do it all the time in the bus), I can't do that with matched. 5-10. Those others points I'll think of later when I'm schlepping furniture around. Bottom line: they both have strengths and weaknesses. Matched probably makes most sense to most, but trad has its advantages too and it could be that those advantages are useful to what you're trying to achieve. Like with everything in music and art, whether something is useful or not all depends on what the artist is trying to achieve. Cheers!
I do like my German matched for all styles (my teacher studied w/ Chapin). Did a couple years with fife & drum corps so HAD to play trad so glad I developed it. Here's a challenge: Sometimes I do an exercise with flams and moeller through exaggerated range where I flip the sticks through matched and trad on BOTH sides in alternation...both matched,both trad underhand, R trad L trad I think you get it.
I've considered learning traditional grip. After speaking with multiple drummers including instructors I simply felt that I didn't want to essentially start over. I'm typically practicing an hour a day, six days a week just on stick control. That's coming along very well in matched grip.
I struggled mightily as a teen w. trad. grip and I felt like a failure as a drummer b'cuz I grew up seeing all the greats play trad. grip. I gave it up, and worked extensively on my weaker left hand w. matched grip. After developing competence w. Moeller on my left hand and being able to play solid double & triple strokes, I started working on trad grip again. Now, I actually feel like a drummer as I can mostly play what I want. If I'm trying to comp, play more taps, diddles, drags, ghost notes and mostly play off the snare w. a few tom strokes, I use trad grip. If I want a heavier accent and really fat back beat and do more tom work, I use matched grip.
Traditional is just another Tool for certain stuff. I grew up in a Drum Corps playing Snare never thinking about Jazz or so. Now it´s Handy to have both grips. It´s like Stevens, Burton, Traditional or Musser on Marimba... There´s no Bad one if you make it your Grip!
Traditional vs. Matched grip - the ultimate question to Life, The Universe and all that Jazz.. I'm a matched grip player but recently I've started learning trad. grip. Somehow it actually improves my left hand when I switch back to matched grip. And yeah, there's certainly a psychological thing going on when you assume the trad. grip posture. It feels different and more..jazzy? Maybe just a mind-trick.
Well originally the traditional grip was "accidentally" passed on from the original marching band guys that had their snares hanging in a specific angle, automatically they were forced to hold their left stick in the "traditional" way. With the matched grip we're able to naturally have major control over the stick , but it's a matter of preference really.. Exept drummers under their 50s that switch to traditional grip exclusively to play jazz, they're just being cocky and trying to look cool and vintage
I feel ashamed lol I'm a beginner drummer I just started playing around with traditional grip when practicing basic comping just because it looked cool and wanted to know how it feels. Its kind of fun but I don't really understand why you would use it over matched it's so hard to do and uncomfortable.
I don't think that using trad exclusively to play jazz is a bad thing though. That's the style that trad suits the best, with it's potential for very quiet, natural diddles and drags and easy ghost notes, it really just can feel easier to use when playing jazz. (Which makes sense, since jazz drummers kept using trad because of the tilted drum in marching band.) And, while don't necessarily think it looks cooler, I think playing trad for the aesthetic is valid too. As you said, it's all a matter of preference, and if you prefer the look of trad grip and you like it, go for it. I personally think matched grip is better universally, and you should learn both, but yeah whatever floats your boat.
Traditional grip will go the way of 8-tracks and cassettes in a matter of years.. It is just as you explained in this video.. Watch out for flying tomatoes and other objects coming from the die-hards lol.. I never taught a student who played traditional grip and that was two decades ago.. and they are the players out there today.. I do agree with the 'difference' in feeling when playing traditional and identifying with old school drumming but again I think time will take even the curiosity away.. Thanks for another great video.
Traditional was taught in schools and all instruction books. In the old days, if you played match, you were considered un-schooled, Non reader, garage band ect.
Nice video, thanks for posting. You have to admit, at least from the audience perspective, the matched grip lacks the proper aesthetics in comparison to traditional grip. In fact, it looks awkward. Traditional grip seems more natural and looks better for that style of play..
Off topic here, but could you share how you tuned your snare and bass drum? They sound fantastic together! I've never been nuts on the super high bop sound for the bass drum. Yours has some a good bottom to it.
I play on a right handed completely normal setup, and i am right handed myself, but i absolutely hate playing traditional with my left but for some reason it just feels right to hold the traditional grip on my right hand and use it as such on the ride, and occasionally the hi hats ect. Is there a good reason not to?
You didnt mention the hihat which is a massive part of jazz playing and that playing using traditional grip means that you can maintain the same hand playing the same pattern rather than using the opposite hand which is the biggest drawback of mached grip generally . Nice drumming though.
I could be totally twisted on this, but I got that impression anyway from some stuff I was reading. I think morello preferred the "quieter" body that gladstone/glstone technique leads to
Matched grip is better for literally every single musical situation, and I’ve really only ever played traditional grip. The only reason it still exists is for aesthetic reasons. Anyone who says it is better technically, is just making excuses in my opinion.
Traditional was for playing the snare while marching. It was carried on after the kit was created, and "purest", or people affraid of change kept teaching it. People can adjust, so it still works for some, but no reason to continue to teach it
Why play one hand differently to the other? The only reason for traditional grip is because years ago the drum was strapped over the shoulder in marching bands and they needed to hold one stick differently because the drum was at an angle. If the drum kit had been invented before then, this wouldn't be an issue, both hands would be matched. If you have to hit a drum evenly, with the same dynamics in both hands, there is no reason to use a different grip for each hand. It doesn't happen with any other percussive instrument like tympani,, vibes, glockenspiel, etc, and imagine someone coming up with the idea of playing a piano using completely different hand techniques for left and right hands. Some of my favourite drummers use traditional grip in some of their playing, like Dave Weckl, Thomas Lang, Tony Royster, Jojo Mayer but not exclusively so I have nothing against it. As a drum teacher in England I would find it rather unnatural to use a traditional grip for pupils, as a matched grip is far more efficient.
Hi Nate! As a big traditional grip proponent, I have a few bones to pick with this video. But first, I want to temper my criticism a bit. I know that you’re good at taking criticism to heart, and that's something I respect, but that also means I'm not going to pull any punches in an attempt to sugar coat. And I am going to lay into you a bit, so I want to let you know that in general I’m a big fan of your content. The most stinging criticism is that… you may not have the proper perspective to actually say much about the topic. Your traditional grip is, to put it mildly, not great (and that's something of an understatement). Even when you try to loosen up there seems to be this awkward tension to your left-hand movements, nothing looks smooth, everything feels a bit forced, you aren't quite sure what to do with your elbow… and your left shoulder hunch is pretty obvious as well. On top of that, you make the common mistake of aligning the position of your left and right hands visually as opposed to matching the actual fulcrum points, which means you should actually move your left-hand position further up the stick. [addendum: The problem is less the disadvantageous position of the fulcrum (there are some great drummers who play way far back on the stick) than the disconnect between the hands. Admittedly, some great drummers also have this disconnect. Weckl used to do the same thing, but he evolved past it. As an aside, there are a ton of great drummers with obvious technique issues, even if you wouldn’t think it watching them play. Humans are incredibly adaptable in that way. But what you don’t see from any of the pros is a movement from better to worse technique--only the other way around.] Frankly speaking, your proficiency with overhand grip on your left hand looks to be about an order of magnitude above your proficiency with underhand. For some perspective about myself, I’ve played matched grip for most of my life, left hand lead on a right-handed kit, for most of my life--although I can lead with my right hand at somewhere between 65-105% proficiency, depending on the specific situation. And it’s in this context that I taught myself to play left underhand grip about ten years ago. Like you, I got to the point where I could make it work… but not at anything like my regular proficiency. Add to that the fact that I only really found it useful or even practised it when I was leading with my right hand. Then a state change happened. About two years ago I took about to also learn underhand grip with my right hand… and on a whim decided that for a few days I would play underhand in both hands. The idea being that, while obviously absurd and impractical and flawed, that this way my somewhat passable left hand would have an easier time teaching my, at that point hardly useful, right hand. And in that sense, I was right. It didn’t take long at all for my right hand to get to the point where its deficit against the stronger left was about the same regardless of grip. But I found that, even though I couldn’t yet play as well this way, I enjoyed it far more than regular matched grip. So I kept playing double-traditional (or matched-traditional, matched-underhand... whatever you want to call it), and somewhere along the line this became my default way of playing. My previous preconceptions began to fade away. Now I’m actually more proficient using underhand grip in both hands than I am with overhand. Matched-underhand is *not* the same thing as regular traditional grip though, nor is it the topic of your video, and they have different strengths and weaknesses. The point is to give you some perspective on where I’m coming from. And I think that my unique situation may have given me some insight into things that isn’t too obvious when your underhand grip is constrained to asymmetric use in a support role on just the weak hand. Anyway, getting onto the actual arguments presented: “The original impetus for traditional grip doesn’t exist, hence there’s no practical reason not to play matched grip.” This is easily my least favourite argument int he whole traditional vs. matched debate, because it’s so ubiquitous but doesn’t prove anything. It’s what we call a *genetic fallacy*. The rightness,wrongness, or in this case, goodness of a thing is orthogonal to how that thing came to be. It’s a fun factoid, but it isn’t valid criticism. Which leaves your non-fallacious assertions to two items: Posture and rimshots. And to an extent I agree and disagree with both of these. In terms of posture, well, you yourself mention that if you’re conscious about your posture it isn't always an issue. There are trad players with bad posture, certainly, and there are also trad players who have good posture. Bad posture being more common with traditional grip is a point against it, sure, but it’s an incredibly minor consideration all things told precisely because it's an avoidable quirk rather than a fundamental issue. Which leaves us with just rimshots… and these at least are a bit more interesting. If the angle is ideal in either case,I don’t necessarily agree that they're any harder or easier in one grip or another. (Although to be honest, I also don’t definitively disagree either. Which is to say that I have some uncertainty in the matter.) [addendum: Related to rimshots, at one point I thought freehand was an area where overhand grip had an obvious advantage. Now I’m not 100% sure when it comes to snare (assuming an ideal angle in both cases)… but I think that's still certainly true for toms, where it's very difficult to get a perfectly ideal angle for underhand.] What I will say, and I think this encapsulates the entire posture/rimshot point and even more than that, is that if you mix an underhand grip with an overhand grip you won’t be able to position all of your drums and cymbals ideally for both of your hands. Either the left suffers, or the right, or in what I would imagine are most scenarios, you land somewhere in-between. To me, this is *the* major drawback of traditional grip. And it's certainly not a small one. Of course, you can make other arguments in favour of matched grip… symmetry, consistency, power, getting around the kit(esp. larger kits)… but you don’t ever go there in your video. [addendum: I think that some of these presumed advantages aren’t fundamental to an overhand grip, but instead flow from how underhand grips are applied on the drums... Maybe not fully, but at least to a large extent. I believe there’s something to be said about being able to teach your weak hand via your strong one, and that the path of least resistance for traditional grip players leads to inadequate focus on left hand mobility. Everyone’s hands are different, and I have generally really good joint flexibility so I won’t say the following is universally true, but in many ways I've found underhand grip makes me more mobile instead of less as is the traditional (heh) wisdom. For example, I’ve developed my ring finger to be able to “flick” the stick backwards, so I can, say, quickly alternate between snare and ride with my right hand without doing much in the way of actual arm movement. Transitioning from drums to cymbals involves a very ergonomic, quick, and satisfying “whip” action. You can get some semblance of a whip action with overhand too, but it's not really the same. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t certain movements that I still find easier in overhand, because there are and there probably always will be, despite the fact that my journey in the land of matched-underhand is really only just beginning.] And likewise, either you’re completely ignorant of the strengths of traditional grip, or you’re ignoring them. Again, I imagine the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Some commentators have pointed out brushes, but that’s more an extension of a general ergonomic advantage that traditional grip has for most forms of crossovers. Volume control is another obvious plus. Each grip has a host of minor advantages and disadvantages, but I’ll spare you all that. Instead, I’ll skip to the biggest, absolutely monumental advantage that an underhand grip gives, which is an enormously improved ability to modulate the vertical angle of attack between the stick and the playing surface. *That’s* what makes traditional grip such a good fit for jazz. Electronic drumsets are bad for jazz exactly because they massively reduce the range of dynamics and expressiveness for each surface. But being able to go from nearly parallel to nearly perpendicular at a whim improves those same properties in a very tangible way. It’s not much of a consideration for rock or metal or course, but with jazz where *the way* each note is played accounts for so much... let's just say that in my opinion, this one advantage completely overrides any deficits that traditional grip has against matched when it comes to jazz.
I’ve found matched grip is (for me) the undisputed champ of the result BUT traditional grip -for all of it’s near misses and disputed foibles, does change the player physiology/psychology and the personality of the drums. It’s a shift (and a dramatic one). But from a utilitarian perspective, matched grip will get you there (usually) quicker. Having written this, I’ve been a matched grip player for thirty two years and traditional grip for twenty five .... and I’m still a work in progress with both.
I remember asking my first drum instructor if I should learn traditional grip and he said only if I was planning on playing a snare at my side.
There are two good reasons to learn traditional grip:
1) Brushes! Because, to utilize all of the surface, sweeping underneath one hand is very effective and that is very easy to do in trad grip because of the hand position
2) effortless playing at low volumes. Because the mass of the hand is underneath the stick, you aren’t fighting gravity as much as with matched grip
The main reason I play trad is the various sounds I get out if it - it’s easy to change the stick/head angle and that alters the sound quite a bit.
But hey, it’s just a tool for creating art!
Those are good reasons!
Never seen the case for traditional grip put better!
I 2nd this. Ghost notes at low volumes with traditional grip while comping is easier to control for me. Nothing you can't learn with matched, just easier with traditional.
Actually, I've seen exactly the opposite argument for the brushes by Ed Thigpen in The Sound of Brushes. To utilize the almost-horizontal position of a brush, matched grip is easier than traditional. Hence I started practising that recently.
Raimonds Blūms those are all easily done with matched grip and practice. I don’t see those as reasons for traditional, just preference
The best method is whatever you feel most comfortable with.
How about if your a beginner?
Mini Surf Usually we start with matched grip
Jack Leaves when do u switch?
Mini Surf For me personally, switching grips is optional. Try to switch grips if u feel like matched is not that comfortable or you just want to try out different grips. You’re not forced to change grips but knowing 2 grips is convenient.
Either way its up to you whether you want to switch or not
This is the only answer 💜✌️
After allmost 36 years on my drumming journey..im finally getting serious about the traditional grip...Jim Hammond Louisiana..🇺🇸
I used to play a combo of matched and traditional, but my private teacher (who plays exclusively trad grip) really pushed me to play matched. He's been playing traditional since he started drums, and now that he's older he wishes he played matched. After a month I completely switched to matched and I haven't looked back. I found I had different vocabulary with matched and tradition, but with a week or so of practice I had everything available with just the one grip. Matched isn't definitively better, but in my experience the whole "kinesthetic sense" thing doesn't hold true. Trad and matched definitely feel different to play, but I don't see that any different than the difference in feel with the type of stick, drums or cymbals you use. I used to use the excuse of being able to have a different mindset when using each grip, but I realized after I switched to matched that it was just a crutch to impose a "jazzier vibe" on myself.
If anybody uses trad that's not a problem. If you're more comfortable with a grip you should use that. I just don't appreciate people using a grip to get into the minds of the jazz greats instead of just doing transcriptions and working on comping with matched.
I'm open to discussion :) also, don't let me deter you from what you want to do. If you really feel it, switch grips every 2 bars for all I care
I agree. Look at my links above in the comments.
Getting into the minds of great players isn't really that bad though
Great lesson. I took up drums as an old timer and have used matched grip simply because its easier. Trying to learn traditional and its a chore. But what the heck, its something new to try and learn. And it looks sooo cool when you watch the masters. Good Content Nate!
2:17 : "Let's just quickly talk about what we're talking about when we talk about these two different grips"
- Nate
I mostly agree with Nate on the practicality of traditional grip with the exception of playing with brushes (which is a big part of a practical jazz repertoire). I was all matched grip all the time, but started having some serious wrist problems when playing brushes that way. I would end up bending my left wrist down at some ungodly angle or tilting my elbow up. So my first foray into traditional grip was for playing brushes, as it made my wrist issues instantly go away. Now I try to keep both grips up to snuff so that I have a similar vocabulary on brushes as I do on sticks.
it could also be your hand position when playing matched. I haven't seen you play, but it sounds suspiciously like you were using muscle to "hold" your left hand in place - i.e. a "german" kind of grip, and the more "natural" hand angle of traditional gave you some relief.
2:18 ''Let's talk about what we're talking about''
yes
At 18:36 you're staring through my soul asking "Did you practice today?"
Sam Platt well, Did You 😳😳🤣🤣
I started at 10 with traditional. Marching band we played matched.
Concert snare in school I played traditional.
I switched to matched on drumset at 18.
Now at 40 I will play both comfortably at that. Glad I learned traditional
though.
I'd say it's really up to what personal comfort is.
Learn both you won’t be disappointed I switch as I play sometimes depending my feel or more power if needed
Matched grip is definitely more ergonomic. If your playing multiple sets per night multiple nights per week this is very important. I just did a long stint of this if I was playing traditional grip I would need massive chiropractic care.
I use both, and it’s all about context. Jazz to me feels so much better with traditional, and I find the way I speak on the drums changes from the two grips. However, matched grip just has so much more power to it if you need it (and trust me, I’ve had to use that power before). I’d say learn both but understand when one feels better than the other
I learned traditional originally, and was never actually taught matched grip. This presented a challenge when I played bass drum in marching band, which requires something far closer to matched stick than anything else. So most of the time since then, I have made myself play matched stick by default - especially since I don’t play jazz very often. I find it much easier to play toms and left-side crash cymbals with matched stick. However, after all these years, my left hand is still more comfortable playing traditional grip - I feel I have more natural speed and control. I like to impress myself with how quickly I can change grips within a song. 😁
I changed to trad grip long ago when I had just started drumming. I could utilize the stick better with my hated, weak left hand, which was surprising. But I can frequently notice the advantages of match grip though. The thing I love most about trad grip is being able to play crazily quiet notes on snare.
Man thanks for your contribution.
I miss your interviews with other cats, like the ones you covered in the beginning...
Those give a lot of insight on how people focus this craft, that normally goes beyond the usual non important topics,
Thanks again.
groove ithard I always assumed people found it boring 🤣- I want to find a way to get back into that stuff tho
I change back and forth. More jazz with traditional for straight rock .I played many years traditional but I work on both.
Great stuff! The connection of trad grip to the old school was an angle I never really considered.
Some of the greatest of the great could switch back and forth between grips (used matched when they needed more power, etc). Roy Haynes is a great example of this.
For My On/Off Playing Which Is Almost 30yrs... I've Used Both(Yet In My Formal Lesson's In College I Did Feel That Trad Grip Presentation Constantly Manifested "Posture Problems";Not That I Didn't Learn Anything Because I'd Really In The Experimental Process Of Approach Grasp Substance Of It;...
As someone who used to play matched as a recreational drummer, but switched to trad when I got serious about drumming I'd like to offer a few things.
I agree that ergonomically and technically, matched is probably the best choice for most situations, but that doesn't mean trad is necessarily bad for you, but it can lure you into bad ways.
If you play traditional only/mostly, and you want to keep good posture, you have to do one of two things:
1. You angle your snare and other drums so that you hit them well, with good posture. That's mainly the snare, the toms less so, although I do tend to have my floors set up quite level, whereas matched players tend to have them leaning in.
2. You get over the fact that your stick will hit the drum at an angle and keep your body from compensating for it. You see a lot of jazz drummers play like this. Level snare, trad hand is just higher and the stick hits the head at an angle, big deal. Health is everything, Obviously, this creates a little challenge to play rimshots with the trad hand. It has the benefit of being able to switch between trad and matched easily.
When we talk about the technical side, I will say that the main advantage to matched in my experience is that with finger technique, you have the pinky to add power. The pinky is often mistakenly thought of as weak. But I think it's quite powerful. I know it's normal that your weak hand is behind your strong hand, and for most drummers it's a challenge to get their weak (comp) hand on par with their dominant hand, but I feel that when it comes to trad, that missing pinky gives an added handicap.
Then why play trad at all?
I started experimenting with trad in my self taught days, so bear that in mind.
I couldn't get good bounce going with my weak hand (only played Rrl triplet rolls) so I decided to try traditional grip to see if that suited me better and low and behold it did.
Next thing I was asked to play in an industrial performance which required me to whale into a floor tom, continuously for up to an hour.
I knew that without proper technique I'd end up hurting myself, so I researched and found moeller. I practiced it, and I managed to get through those performances without a single blister or discomfort. Of course, I could've done that with matched too, but I'd stuck with trad and it has served me well.
So what are the advantages to Traditional grip?
1. You almost never lose/drop your stick :D
2. It invites you to play in different ways, being asymmetrical with the other hand also seems to help with that. Jojo Mayer describes this well in his hand technique video.
3. It adds the powerful thumb into the game.
4. because you have a means to support the stick from the bottom, it's easier to play with a light touch. Your ring finger will catch the stick naturally, there's no added motion of the fingers to catch the stick like with matched. It also means you're not dependent on rebound. I can practice finger technique with trad grip silently without a pad (do it all the time in the bus), I can't do that with matched.
5-10. Those others points I'll think of later when I'm schlepping furniture around.
Bottom line: they both have strengths and weaknesses. Matched probably makes most sense to most, but trad has its advantages too and it could be that those advantages are useful to what you're trying to achieve. Like with everything in music and art, whether something is useful or not all depends on what the artist is trying to achieve.
Cheers!
Open hand is the way of the future
I do like my German matched for all styles (my teacher studied w/ Chapin). Did a couple years with fife & drum corps so HAD to play trad so glad I developed it. Here's a challenge: Sometimes I do an exercise with flams and moeller through exaggerated range where I flip the sticks through matched and trad on BOTH sides in alternation...both matched,both trad underhand, R trad L trad I think you get it.
Excellent lesson.
I've considered learning traditional grip. After speaking with multiple drummers including instructors I simply felt that I didn't want to essentially start over. I'm typically practicing an hour a day, six days a week just on stick control. That's coming along very well in matched grip.
mmmm yes Ari Hoenig my favorite traditional player
I struggled mightily as a teen w. trad. grip and I felt like a failure as a drummer b'cuz I grew up seeing all the greats play trad. grip. I gave it up, and worked extensively on my weaker left hand w. matched grip. After developing competence w. Moeller on my left hand and being able to play solid double & triple strokes, I started working on trad grip again.
Now, I actually feel like a drummer as I can mostly play what I want. If I'm trying to comp, play more taps, diddles, drags, ghost notes and mostly play off the snare w. a few tom strokes, I use trad grip. If I want a heavier accent and really fat back beat and do more tom work, I use matched grip.
IF YOU AIN'T LEFT HANDED DONT WORRY ABOUT IT!!!!!!!
Traditional is just another Tool for certain stuff. I grew up in a Drum Corps playing Snare never thinking about Jazz or so. Now it´s Handy to have both grips. It´s like Stevens, Burton, Traditional or Musser on Marimba... There´s no Bad one if you make it your Grip!
Excellent
12:08 Indeed.
Traditional vs. Matched grip - the ultimate question to Life, The Universe and all that Jazz..
I'm a matched grip player but recently I've started learning trad. grip. Somehow it actually improves my left hand when I switch back to matched grip. And yeah, there's certainly a psychological thing going on when you assume the trad. grip posture. It feels different and more..jazzy? Maybe just a mind-trick.
Well originally the traditional grip was "accidentally" passed on from the original marching band guys that had their snares hanging in a specific angle, automatically they were forced to hold their left stick in the "traditional" way.
With the matched grip we're able to naturally have major control over the stick , but it's a matter of preference really..
Exept drummers under their 50s that switch to traditional grip exclusively to play jazz, they're just being cocky and trying to look cool and vintage
I feel ashamed lol I'm a beginner drummer I just started playing around with traditional grip when practicing basic comping just because it looked cool and wanted to know how it feels. Its kind of fun but I don't really understand why you would use it over matched it's so hard to do and uncomfortable.
I don't think that using trad exclusively to play jazz is a bad thing though. That's the style that trad suits the best, with it's potential for very quiet, natural diddles and drags and easy ghost notes, it really just can feel easier to use when playing jazz. (Which makes sense, since jazz drummers kept using trad because of the tilted drum in marching band.) And, while don't necessarily think it looks cooler, I think playing trad for the aesthetic is valid too. As you said, it's all a matter of preference, and if you prefer the look of trad grip and you like it, go for it. I personally think matched grip is better universally, and you should learn both, but yeah whatever floats your boat.
Na, some us just naturally developed the traditional grip marching snare so we don’t suck at it and it’s not a big deal 😂
Yo i really dig your playing! Can we see live music where you play on yt or whatever id love to see you in a musical context
StompL7 I’d have to get some gigs first
Trad grip to me has always been for reasons other than ease of play. The point about posture is well made; look at Buddy's awful later slump.
I play both hands like the comping hand in traditional grip. I call it matched traditional.
Nate you sent me 3 videos in one week!!!
Mini Surf wait two more weeks
The 80/20 Drummer I’m still on your don’t sound like a noob PDF lol
I noticed Levon Helm did traditional.
Traditional grip will go the way of 8-tracks and cassettes in a matter of years.. It is just as you explained in this video.. Watch out for flying tomatoes and other objects coming from the die-hards lol.. I never taught a student who played traditional grip and that was two decades ago.. and they are the players out there today.. I do agree with the 'difference' in feeling when playing traditional and identifying with old school drumming but again I think time will take even the curiosity away.. Thanks for another great video.
Traditional was taught in schools and all instruction books. In the old days, if you played match, you were considered un-schooled, Non reader, garage band ect.
and now we know that traditional is actually worse for your wrist health long term...
Not a jazz drumming question but how about left hand lead vs right?
Well, it's not strictly a jazz thing. Do you mean en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-handed_drumming ?
Nice video, thanks for posting. You have to admit, at least from the audience perspective, the matched grip lacks the proper aesthetics in comparison to traditional grip. In fact, it looks awkward. Traditional grip seems more natural and looks better for that style of play..
Matched grip works very well . But do not use double braced hardware when you play jazz.
Off topic here, but could you share how you tuned your snare and bass drum? They sound fantastic together! I've never been nuts on the super high bop sound for the bass drum. Yours has some a good bottom to it.
jazzdrummer8 could just be the mic, but sure I’ll do a lesson on that :)
For me it doesn't matter. Billy Cobham proved that. I have played trad grip but only with a teacher.
I agree. Look at my links above in the comments
can we get a video on how to sound like a modern day jazz drummer. ex: ari hoeing and mark guiliana
Do you mind if it's 5 years old and ghetto-as-hell? ruclips.net/video/nuy66z9-C7U/видео.html
I play on a right handed completely normal setup, and i am right handed myself, but i absolutely hate playing traditional with my left but for some reason it just feels right to hold the traditional grip on my right hand and use it as such on the ride, and occasionally the hi hats ect. Is there a good reason not to?
Whichever the song calls for?? As long as you just use THE WRISTS!
You didnt mention the hihat which is a massive part of jazz playing and that playing using traditional grip means that you can maintain the same hand playing the same pattern rather than using the opposite hand which is the biggest drawback of mached grip generally . Nice drumming though.
BINGO. This, and the ability to play softer.
Yeeeeeeaaaaah!
Flamacues rock pretty hard with trad grip
Just based on your smile, traditional.
Didn't morrello dislike the moeller method and prefer gladstone/ gl stones approach?
Lucas Goudie dude are you gonna make me look up my “facts”? Party foul 🤣🤣
I could be totally twisted on this, but I got that impression anyway from some stuff I was reading. I think morello preferred the "quieter" body that gladstone/glstone technique leads to
Correct!
9:12 a drumatic tilt?
:P
The traditional grip has more a swing to it IMO. More "incidental" understated hits.
Matched grip is better for literally every single musical situation, and I’ve really only ever played traditional grip. The only reason it still exists is for aesthetic reasons. Anyone who says it is better technically, is just making excuses in my opinion.
Matches grip feels more comfortable for me, but I can play faster with traditional grip
@@Gustavo-so7zk It's possibly because you practiced fast playing more with the traditional grip than matched.
Traditional was for playing the snare while marching. It was carried on after the kit was created, and "purest", or people affraid of change kept teaching it. People can adjust, so it still works for some, but no reason to continue to teach it
Traditional doesn't really make any sense. But for playing jazz, it just swings more.
Why play one hand differently to the other?
The only reason for traditional grip is because years ago the drum was strapped over the shoulder in marching bands and they needed to hold one stick differently because the drum was at an angle.
If the drum kit had been invented before then, this wouldn't be an issue, both hands would be matched.
If you have to hit a drum evenly, with the same dynamics in both hands, there is no reason to use a different grip for each hand.
It doesn't happen with any other percussive instrument like tympani,, vibes, glockenspiel, etc, and imagine someone coming up with the idea of playing a piano using completely different hand techniques for left and right hands.
Some of my favourite drummers use traditional grip in some of their playing, like Dave Weckl, Thomas Lang, Tony Royster, Jojo Mayer but not exclusively so I have nothing against it.
As a drum teacher in England I would find it rather unnatural to use a traditional grip for pupils, as a matched grip is far more efficient.
Correct, Unless you're marching across a battlefield with a drum slung over your shoulder, you don't ever need to play or learn Traditional grip!
People just want to act like they’re Buddy Rich.
Hi Nate!
As a big traditional grip proponent, I have a few bones to pick with this video.
But first, I want to temper my criticism a bit. I know that you’re good at taking criticism to heart, and that's something I respect, but that also means I'm not going to pull any punches in an attempt to sugar coat. And I am going to lay into you a bit, so I want to let you know that in general I’m a big fan of your content.
The most stinging criticism is that… you may not have the proper perspective to actually say much about the topic. Your traditional grip is, to put it mildly, not great (and that's something of an understatement). Even when you try to loosen up there seems to be this awkward tension to your left-hand movements, nothing looks smooth, everything feels a bit forced, you aren't quite sure what to do with your elbow… and your left shoulder hunch is pretty obvious as well.
On top of that, you make the common mistake of aligning the position of your left and right hands visually as opposed to matching the actual fulcrum points, which means you should actually move your left-hand position further up the stick.
[addendum: The problem is less the disadvantageous position of the fulcrum (there are some great drummers who play way far back on the stick) than the disconnect between the hands. Admittedly, some great drummers also have this disconnect. Weckl used to do the same thing, but he evolved past it. As an aside, there are a ton of great drummers with obvious technique issues, even if you wouldn’t think it watching them play. Humans are incredibly adaptable in that way. But what you don’t see from any of the pros is a movement from better to worse technique--only the other way around.]
Frankly speaking, your proficiency with overhand grip on your left hand looks to be about an order of magnitude above your proficiency with underhand.
For some perspective about myself, I’ve played matched grip for most of my life, left hand lead on a right-handed kit, for most of my life--although I can lead with my right hand at somewhere between 65-105% proficiency, depending on the specific situation. And it’s in this context that I taught myself to play left underhand grip about ten years ago. Like you, I got to the point where I could make it work… but not at anything like my regular proficiency. Add to that the fact that I only really found it useful or even practised it when I was leading with my right hand.
Then a state change happened. About two years ago I took about to also learn underhand grip with my right hand… and on a whim decided that for a few days I would play underhand in both hands. The idea being that, while obviously absurd and impractical and flawed, that this way my somewhat passable left hand would have an easier time teaching my, at that point hardly useful, right hand.
And in that sense, I was right. It didn’t take long at all for my right hand to get to the point where its deficit against the stronger left was about the same regardless of grip. But I found that, even though I couldn’t yet play as well this way, I enjoyed it far more than regular matched grip. So I kept playing double-traditional (or matched-traditional, matched-underhand... whatever you want to call it), and somewhere along the line this became my default way of playing. My previous preconceptions began to fade away. Now I’m actually more proficient using underhand grip in both hands than I am with overhand. Matched-underhand is *not* the same thing as regular traditional grip though, nor is it the topic of your video, and they have different strengths and weaknesses. The point is to give you some perspective on where I’m coming from. And I think that my unique situation may have given me some insight into things that isn’t too obvious when your underhand grip is constrained to asymmetric use in a support role on just the weak hand.
Anyway, getting onto the actual arguments presented:
“The original impetus for traditional grip doesn’t exist, hence there’s no practical reason not to play matched grip.”
This is easily my least favourite argument int he whole traditional vs. matched debate, because it’s so ubiquitous but doesn’t prove anything. It’s what we call a *genetic fallacy*. The rightness,wrongness, or in this case, goodness of a thing is orthogonal to how that thing came to be. It’s a fun factoid, but it isn’t valid criticism.
Which leaves your non-fallacious assertions to two items: Posture and rimshots.
And to an extent I agree and disagree with both of these. In terms of posture, well, you yourself mention that if you’re conscious about your posture it isn't always an issue. There are trad players with bad posture, certainly, and there are also trad players who have good posture. Bad posture being more common with traditional grip is a point against it, sure, but it’s an incredibly minor consideration all things told precisely because it's an avoidable quirk rather than a fundamental issue.
Which leaves us with just rimshots… and these at least are a bit more interesting. If the angle is ideal in either case,I don’t necessarily agree that they're any harder or easier in one grip or another. (Although to be honest, I also don’t definitively disagree either. Which is to say that I have some uncertainty in the matter.)
[addendum: Related to rimshots, at one point I thought freehand was an area where overhand grip had an obvious advantage. Now I’m not 100% sure when it comes to snare (assuming an ideal angle in both cases)… but I think that's still certainly true for toms, where it's very difficult to get a perfectly ideal angle for underhand.]
What I will say, and I think this encapsulates the entire posture/rimshot point and even more than that, is that if you mix an underhand grip with an overhand grip you won’t be able to position all of your drums and cymbals ideally for both of your hands. Either the left suffers, or the right, or in what I would imagine are most scenarios, you land somewhere in-between. To me, this is *the* major drawback of traditional grip. And it's certainly not a small one.
Of course, you can make other arguments in favour of matched grip… symmetry, consistency, power, getting around the kit(esp. larger kits)… but you don’t ever go there in your video.
[addendum: I think that some of these presumed advantages aren’t fundamental to an overhand grip, but instead flow from how underhand grips are applied on the drums... Maybe not fully, but at least to a large extent. I believe there’s something to be said about being able to teach your weak hand via your strong one, and that the path of least resistance for traditional grip players leads to inadequate focus on left hand mobility. Everyone’s hands are different, and I have generally really good joint flexibility so I won’t say the following is universally true, but in many ways I've found underhand grip makes me more mobile instead of less as is the traditional (heh) wisdom. For example, I’ve developed my ring finger to be able to “flick” the stick backwards, so I can, say, quickly alternate between snare and ride with my right hand without doing much in the way of actual arm movement. Transitioning from drums to cymbals involves a very ergonomic, quick, and satisfying “whip” action. You can get some semblance of a whip action with overhand too, but it's not really the same. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t certain movements that I still find easier in overhand, because there are and there probably always will be, despite the fact that my journey in the land of matched-underhand is really only just beginning.]
And likewise, either you’re completely ignorant of the strengths of traditional grip, or you’re ignoring them. Again, I imagine the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Some commentators have pointed out brushes, but that’s more an extension of a general ergonomic advantage that traditional grip has for most forms of crossovers. Volume control is another obvious plus. Each grip has a host of minor advantages and disadvantages, but I’ll spare you all that.
Instead, I’ll skip to the biggest, absolutely monumental advantage that an underhand grip gives, which is an enormously improved ability to modulate the vertical angle of attack between the stick and the playing surface. *That’s* what makes traditional grip such a good fit for jazz. Electronic drumsets are bad for jazz exactly because they massively reduce the range of dynamics and expressiveness for each surface. But being able to go from nearly parallel to nearly perpendicular at a whim improves those same properties in a very tangible way. It’s not much of a consideration for rock or metal or course, but with jazz where *the way* each note is played accounts for so much... let's just say that in my opinion, this one advantage completely overrides any deficits that traditional grip has against matched when it comes to jazz.
What you trying to protest? 🤣
Traditional grip is also healthier for your wrist
I’ve found matched grip is (for me) the undisputed champ of the result BUT traditional grip -for all of it’s near misses and disputed foibles, does change the player physiology/psychology and the personality of the drums. It’s a shift (and a dramatic one). But from a utilitarian perspective, matched grip will get you there (usually) quicker. Having written this, I’ve been a matched grip player for thirty two years and traditional grip for twenty five .... and I’m still a work in progress with both.