I’ve always played match grip. When I played in marching band I played (tenors, quads, quints) but was never fortunate enough to have the fifth drum. On a kit or set, I’ve always played match grip, but there are a notable few that play open handed like Carter Beauford from the Dave Mathews band.
I’ve heard Carter say that he “just taught himself that way”, and that’s fine, but he’s not alone. I was watching Max Weinberg play tonight, and he plays traditional, as do many of the drumming greats.
Traditional style comes from the tilted snare drums from the civil war era of playing, most likely it started earlier. Yet, people still play like that, and don’t seem to be impeded at all. Match grip players however, far outnumber traditional players, and seem to be able to meet and/or exceed the abilities of the old school drummers. This statement might piss off a few drummers, but we have to realize that new drummers can, and will become drumming legends, not just the elite founders.
That said, in today’s modern world…what advantage is there to use traditional grip, or to play open handed?
We can be as subjective as we want here, so I’ll clarify.
I’m looking for demonstrable, physical, or otherwise proven examples of either proficiency or deficiency. This isn’t a “which is better” but more a “which might be more practical”.
I look forward to hearing from both of the other drummers here.
I’m only a dilettante drummer, but I don’t want this interesting OP to drop off the boards, so I’ll offer my ideas before the real drummers join in (isn’t woodstockbirdybird one of our resident drummers? Paging Mr. Bird.)
It seems to me to be obvious why open-handed drumming (which is matched grip, played without crossing the hands when playing hi-hat and snare, right?) would be advantageous: you don’t tangle up your hands and it seems so much more natural. The only reason to play high hat with your right hand, as I see it, is because most people are right hand dominant and the right hand is usually playing faster and more constant parts. Other than that, I’m wondering why more drummers don’t play open. I mean, think about, doesn’t the crossed hands style of playing seem a bit odd from an efficiency standpoint?
As for traditional grip, I know some drummers feel like they have better wrist control using this grip. Once again, from an efficiency standpoint, matched grip seems more logical to me, but when I started dicking around, traditional grip felt more natural and nuanced. I play matched now, but I could see how some drummers feel more at home with the traditional grip.
My nephew is a drummer. He insists that eventually everyone will play open handed because it is the best way to play. He says that if teachers bite the bullet and stop trying to protect learner’s weaker hands they will learn to drum just fine. He thinks that learning traditional cross hand drumming makes the reliance on the lead hand more pronounced and makes converting to open handed drumming more daunting.
Mind you I’m not sure that he is the perfect advocate because he is fairly ambidextrous. He is left handed but plays guitar right handed and plays some sports right handed simply because the first implements he had were right handed.
Sounds like we have two different interpretations as to what constitutes “matched grip”.
As I understand it, with matched grip you are holding both sticks identically.
This I’ve always found superior to the traditional grip particularly on rolls and whilst on playing on a set. Such that I can’t for the life of me understand why a traditionalist, as it were, would want to play the already less dominant hand with an even less natural grip. It’s tough enough working on even-sounding flams and paradiddles without playing one hand at a disadvantage.
As to the crossing-over playing style on a set, well that’s easy. Since most drummers like most humanoids are right-handed and by extenstion, right-footed, your right foot controls the pedal on the bass drum. This one getting the greater work out than the left which controls the up and down cymbals for the hi-hat. For that reason, you position the hi-hat on your left side and if you’re using your dominant hand to play it, you naturally have to cross over.
