Not to be judgmental or anything but from the look of the picture it seem you are making a small mistake in your form.it looks likes you are catching water in your hand.that a mistake you never want to make turn your left hand over some to get a better quality stroke from the left hand.

You should have the pad of your thumb against your forefinger not the tip. Have your thumb pointing up not down the line of your stick. And also turn your hand over so that you don't "catch water" as ive heard it called, have your palm facing to the side not up.

I can't believe this is still going! I signed up on this site in 2003 or so and watched the beginning of this thread. I since lost my logon and just started visiting again - 50+ pages on left hands - wow!

Now that I'm here again I have a question of the top drummers out there. I've played snare/traditional since 1986 or so. It's not so much my left hand only but overall style. I've heard from some instructors that have told me when I ask that I seem to play to tightly.
They've tried to explain how the stick needs to reverberate and use the natural rebound more. I guess I'm trying to control the sticks 'too much'?
However, when I try to 'loosen up' my grip, the sticks slip. I can feel the vibration of the sticks more and figure that's the right direction but I can't seem to find that balance of 'pinching off the sound' and loosing control of my grip.

Anyone have thoughts on that?

All the pictures i have seen show some pretty poor grip because most arent describing how they use. plus your grip looks best when not used especially if your focusing on it for a picture.I try to emulate what my hand looks like at rest from the side. i dont have tension. the stick rests on the cuticle of my ring finger. my thumb rests on the first joint of my index finger. myindex finger and ring finger are in line with each other while the middle rests on the stick. no tension from being straight or too curved. my pinky rests inline with my ring finger. my thumb is in line with my forearm and the wrist rotation is similar to a door know twist. when i play i dont squeeze anywhere unless necessary and when i do its with the thumb never squeeze with the middl and ring finger thats restricts rebound.

honestly i wasnt trying to fix anything when taking this plus its weird angles with my web cam.

Its all where you put the tension. IF you squeeze with your left hand do it at the fulcrum(between thumb and hand..the webbing) NEVER squeeze in what i call the fron of the grip which is between the middle and ring finger. This causes lack of rebound and major tension.You need to loosen up the front of the grip but keep the fulcrum and many say you should always keep the thumb on you index finger but its all a matter of when to know the right times not too. Just for now keep the contact as best you can. Try playing legato eighth notes. work on relaxing the front of the grip.its okay to let the bottom fingers off the grip and to a degree the middle finger.

Blue devils and scv have completely opposite techniques. BD has more of a down stroke technique and scv is way more relaxed. I use to love bd and their technique but as ive matured in the art of drumming Im starting to like more relaxed technique. less work more results. But yes they are different in the blue devils their left hand they have the middle finger and the ring finger in line with each other so pretty much all your fingers are in line. causes more tension this way i believe.

I went ahead and bought the SCV audition DVD even though I have no hopes of auditioning. Murry Gussek explains the 'how to' behind SCV's extremely relaxed method of drumming and I think in the couple weeks I've had it I've made a lot of progress. If nothing else I now know how to be more critical of my own technique and also know when and why it's OK to not follow the strict rules of snare playing I grew up with.

I believe the same thing. I'm having so much trouble trying to find a corp i wanna march. Try looking into moeller too.. Don't listen to Jeff Queens idea of moeller. Her over exaggerates greatly. Its pretty much initializing upstrokes by leading with the wrist rather than the bead. I cant explain it on here but its definitely a technique you should consider.

When I play traditional (or dare I say it? Old School) left hand it is very similar to yours... the only change is we do the little English Tea Lady pinkie... it is tucked back out of the way like a little old lady sipping tea. It is VERY old school, as in 1970's era old school. The stick does not move at all within the grip, and in order to 'push' the roll forward we add in a pretty mean arm push.

1970's Black Watch and Imperials...