Play with traditional, or matched? I've played matched pretty much since the beginning, but I'm working on traditional. It seems easier with my right hand than with my left, but I've heard that playing righty is "inverted" or "perverted." Either which way, the sound comes out the same to me.

Discuss.








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I'm part of the brotherhood of like-minded individuals who like to bang on things.

I've never heard of playing traditional with your right hand. The only way I could see it working is if you have your kit set up left handed. Otherwise it's just pointless. I think traditional is more for show anyway. It was traditionally developed because marching drums were tilted down to the right and you couldn't play matched. But with modern carriers and such I think the only reason it sticks around is because it just looks better.

I've been playing Traditional grip for a long time now. I started out as matched, but I quickly decided to switch because of my personal hero, Elvin Jones.

Alot of people argue that Traditional grip is rather pointless...well in some ways yes, and in some other ways, no it isn't.

If you tilt your drums to the right as I do, it no longer becomes useless. Also, the stick is sitting in your hand differently, which opens up new options for finger technique. There are certain finger techniques that you can do with traditional grip, that you can't do with matched. Simply because your holding the stick differently.

In matched grip, all of your fingures are below the stick. In trad, you have two above, and two below. You fingures simply have more options with traditional.









Last edited by RogersDrummer on Mon Apr 30, 2007 1:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
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The only thing that can prevent you from acheving even the furthest goal, is doubt. Stay dedicated.

playing trad with your right hand is for left handed drummers playing a lefty kit. it was developed (like was stated above) back when drums were on slings and hung to one side but then carried over onto set usually resulting in slight changes in set up like snare tilted slightly forward, toms more flat, ect. it is a lot for looks but also some drummers and other musician see it as a sort of marking of formal teaching. i played drum set for years matched and played on drum pads and snare traditional. so i just recently switched over to all traditional not for the look but because it feels the best for me. i can get the same power out of trad as i could matched with a better feel for the stick.

but if you're right handed and want to learn traditional, do it with your left hand. if your gonna go for it ya might as well do it right. and i know someones gonna say "theres no right and wrong. its about what you like." well, in this case a right handed player plays trad with their left hand and a lefty player plays it with their right. thats how its been for tons of years and thats what is accepted in the world of grips

the reason why match grip came around was because drummers started to use very large drums sets, like neil pert, and it was to hard to play traditional with all of the peices, i play matched, even though i have a four peice drum set, so its basicly what you prefer personally.








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Pearl, Zildjian, Promark, Paiste

Thanks for your input. I'd always imagined that traditionl(left since I'm a righty) offered more options technique wise. I never said I was learning trad with my right hand, however I did say that it felt more comfortable in my right hand, obviously cause I'm right handed. I'm learning traditional with my left just as a matter of learning new techniques. I was at the GMEA conference in Savannah (Georgia Music Educators Association), and I hopped over to River Street from my hotel to grab a beer in one of the pubs. At the pub, I ran into a drum salesman from Ken Stanton Music in Merietta. During our talk about drums, I picked up the term "perverted" for playing trad with the right hand if you're a righty. We exchanged myspaces and I listened to his music and he listened to mine. It was great.








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I'm part of the brotherhood of like-minded individuals who like to bang on things.

I'm trad all he way, but strangely enough my high school marching band plays match. So I play match only for that (wierd). A lot of the old timer jazz guys feel like trad gives you more ability to shade, and I kind of believe this. I also find it better for dynamics. I realize the old story about why it was originally used, but I think the old trad guys added some things that are very cool to explore.

The left handed playing trad with right hand is interesting to me because I know a lot of people who do this and it seems to work fine for them. But my Dad and my grandfather told me that no one was going to let me sit on the house drumset at introductory jam sessions if I didn't learn right handed, because people would be pissed off all the time about how I stalled the show by switching everything around. They also said that I had a strong left hand already, so if I emphasized the right side I'd have an advantage over a lot of folks when it came to dexterity. I think they have been right about both things. But I was trained right handed immediately upon starting at age 9. I can understand that it would be tougher if you waited until you were older to do it.

But as we know, great players are playing both grips, and I think you should try to devlop a working relationship with both. With that said, I think it's easier to start on trad then work on match. But that's just me, and experiences probably vary.

I started out trad when I was 3, went to matched when I was 7, went back to trad when I was 20, went back to matched when I was 33, now I'm thinking of going back to traditional again. Anyone see a pattern?

Seriously, I play things differently when I play matched. Recently (the past 5 years) matched grip has given me what I need for the work I am doing. However there's a certain fluidity that I am starting to miss with my left hand that matched is not giving me so, it's time to break out the pad and Chaffee books again.








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13612
www.billraydrums.com
www.myspace.com/billraydrums

Predominantly matched grip!








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Mike

http://www.mikemccraw.com
http://www.dominoretroplate.com

http://www.youtube.com/drummermikemccraw
http://www.myspace.com/drummermikemccraw

my first drum instructor was a freak about playing traditional grip. one of the reasons i stopped gewtting lessons was because the guy just wouldn't leave me alone about playing match.








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Speak the rhythm with your hands.

http://www.myspace.com/yjamband



Pearls, Zildjians, Vics, Evans.

I play mostly matched. I do tend to prefer traditional when playing lighter stuff such as jazz, especially when brushes come into play.








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It's so important to make best friends in life!

Tama and Medicine Man Drums, Zildjian, Remo, Roc-n-Soc, DW and Pro-mark.

I play matched, my instructor played trad and even admitted to me theres no real benefit to playing trad grip due to drums not being on a sling anymore. so id say matched is better, cause all of the techniques used for trad grip have been adopted to matched with (even more?) success.