Im doing my junior paper on whether or not traditional grip is better or not for marching. i think it is. can anybody give me insight?(or even argue with me on why it isnt?

Which grip you choose to use is a matter of preference. When it really comes down to it, traditional grip is exactly that...traditional. It was originally implemented to compensate for the tilt that was on the drums of old (think revolutionary war drummers), making it easier to play at the right angle to the head. If you're not marching a tilt, there's really no clear advantage to traditional grip, other than that it's considered the aesthetic norm in the marching snare drum community.

If you look on Youtube, SCV didn't march traditional grip a couple of years (most recently in 2005) and still sounded great.

Hope this helps.

Hey man! Welcome to DLO. This has been discussed several times. If you take a look in the upper right corner there's a search bar, use it and abuse it before posting. It makes the world rotate so much smoother. I searched "traditional" and found all the following relevant threads and one example of someone else asking the same thing without searching.

http://www.drumlines.org/threads/ubbthre...html#Post196220
http://www.drumlines.org/threads/ubbthre...html#Post195543
http://www.drumlines.org/threads/ubbthre...html#Post190471
http://www.drumlines.org/threads/ubbthre...html#Post198812

As far as the question, Traditional by its nature alters the sound of the stick hitting the drum. Different angle, different pressure points in the grip as well as several other variables. Since drumlines are usually pushing for a uniform sound, uniform hands would be a good start right?

In my experience the Traditional vs. Matched argument kind of goes like this universally: "We all agree using the grip defies the principals of a consistent sound, but we like it, we've always done it so we'll continue doing it."

Happy searching!

because i have realized that some of the successful drumlines for high school use matched... like dartmouth, and does it have anything to do with uniqueness nfor judgeing. my high school just switched to traditional this year after we made finals for indoor last year. so i cant figure out if the playing grip has anything to do with judging. and are there any benefits that matched grip doesnt offer?

Chicks dig traditional grip, that's a good enough reason for me.

What 'Ocho and SFZ541 said.

I addition, "somewhere", "someone" has done a study on percussion students using traditional vs. matched...its been mentioned at at least 3 different percussion talks/roundtables/pedagogy sessions I've been to (2 at PASIC in different years, one I can't quite recall the location or occasion). Unfortunately, the source wasn't cited and I didn't inquire (next time, I'm definitely going to.)

The gist was "Students learn faster and play better using matched and what they learned transfers almost seamlessly over to traditional."

Now, you just have to track that study down...

yeah... Im trying to find any kind of study but all i get is random crap