In case you hadn't read the whole thread, MAM was doing his job. This thread was created to critique techniques. One and a half years is not a lot of playing time. It does not allow for a wide variety of techniques. You may be only able to really master 3-4 (maybe only 2) in this time span. When I see someone like MAM who has been teaching and playing for over 10 years, I can promise that he understands his technique. His above post was simply applying what he has learned to what you have learned.

For the record. I appreciate the fact that MAM spent the time to look over my technique and I have taken in the points of his points of criticism.

I realize that MAM is just doing his job, but I must say that the things he says has a very condescending tone. First off MAM, if you did not flat out call the grip that I've learned attrocious, I would have looked at the post willing and eager to learn.

I did in fact learn a few things, there was some substance in what you were saying. I would still like to know what you think about right shoulder tension as I explained in my last post.

Today, while I was in drumline rehearsal, I was thinking about my thumb placement on or off the knuckle and I realized that I actually do play with my thumb ON the knuckle. In the picture, I am obviously not playing my drum, so it's slightly different when applied to the drum. Also in rehearsal today, I started to focus more on keeping a consistant ring finger positioning as you suggested.

That's exactly what they said we SHOULD be able to do at Bluecoats camp, and my private instructor also said to "be able to play with something in your hand."

and..


And I learned mine from a Bluecoats camp, so it's all just different technique.

Hey People,
Welp, below is my technique. I basically run my middle finger along the stick, curved over the stick, trying to get as much contact with the stick as possible. The last two fingers should mirror each other



[img]http://home.comcast.net/~gregwilson7390/front.JPG[/img]

Hey people again,
my dumb sister saw me putting my pics on the site, and she wanted to do it too, so, below is her crazy little way that she thinks the lef-hand grip should be...

i suggest moving your middle finger in towards your hand some...and...i know it's just apicture, which leaes <s>[b]alot[/b]</s> [color:"red"]a lot</font> of room for discrepancies, but do you really hold the stick at the middle? O_o

Chopster06 - We have spoken about this many times before on this board: you need to read, re-read, and re-re-read your posts to make sure that you are getting your ideas across properly and clearly. Any ambiguity in your text and sentance structure can be misinterpreted by other readers, and can affect the type and quality of responses that you receive. With that said:

The way you presented your post indicated to me that what you said was law and that there is no other way to do it. In essence, you set the tone of my response. While you might not have meant for it to come across that way, it did. Within that context, my comment about your "vast experience" was meant to bring you back to reality. There are other techniques out there that go against some of the points that you made, and I was clarifying those points to you. Many of the things I addressed had been mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

I appoligize for the misunderstanding.

Now, I do however, stand by my description of the grip that you presented to us in the first picture you posted. The position your hand and fingers are in makes it look as though you have a palsy of some sort. Your back fingers (thumb, index, middle finger) look extremely tight, and therefore full of tension, which is bad for achieving a decent technique. The way your pinky is positioned makes it look as though you are barely controlling it, as evidenced by the distance that the knuckles of your pinky are past {read: forward) the knuckles of your ring finger. In every technique I have seen the pinky is either directly below the ring finger or just a little inside of it, never outside.

Your second picture of your grip looks much better, however it now shows that your ring finger contacts the stick before your middle finger does. The order of finger contact in your first picture is Thumb-Index-Middle-Ring. The order in the second picture is Thumb-Index-Ring-Middle. Again this goes back to my point about maintaining a consistant grip. I have found that the most control can be obtained by keeping the ring finger either directly below or in front of the middle finger, not behind.

Now, in your rebuttal, you did say that you used the rubber band technique to "train" your pinky's muscle memory (see point number 9,) but in your last post, you indicated this:



That's not going to help your left hand muscle memory. Whether you're playing on a drum, on a pad, on a desk, or on your cat, you should be using the same exact grip the whole time. It should not make any difference if you are on a drum or not. The finger position should be the same no matter what.

As for the tension in the shoulder, that too depends on the technique you are using. Harnesses are designed to fit properly with both shoulders at an even level. If you leave your right arm down and relaxed, there should be very little tension in your shoulder, the harness should not make a difference here. If you have more of a chicken-wing approach with the left arm (where there is a lot of space between the elbow and your side,) there will definitely be some tension. Keeping your arm up creates it's own tension, but in addition to that, the harness will add even more tension, because due to you raising the arm, your shoulder will naturally be raised a little higher. Since one shoulder is higher that the other, the raised shoulder will carry more of the weight from the harness and drum than matched shoulders would, so that extra weight will definitely cause some tension.

Greg - Your grip looks okay, but I would straighten your ring and pinky fingers a little more for better support of the stick. I'd also maybe pull your thumb back a little bit so that the full pad of the thumb contacts the knuckle, not just the bottom of the pad.

Let's not even discuss your sister's grip. Sheesh.

Heres A Pic of my trad grip...could someone critique it plz.

Heres a different view

Alright Just Look.