How to Hold the Drum Sticks

It’s time to pick up your drum sticks and start playing. Sound simple? It is—if you do it right. If you don’t learn the right way to hold your sticks, you can end up expending a lot of excess energy and possibly damaging your hands or wrists. Here’s the right way to hold them.

The Matched Grip

Matched grip is the most commonly used grip today, especially among rock drummers. Since both your hands use an identical grip, it’s easier to learn; this grip also makes it easier to reach over and play the right side of your drumset with your left hand.

Another advantage to matched grip is that it’s pretty much how you’d grab the sticks instinctively. Reach out with your hand and grab the stick about a third of the way from the butt end. Grab it with your thumb and the first joint of your index finger, then close your other fingers loosely around the stick. Now turn your wrist so that the back of your hand is facing upward and the stick is angled inward at about a 45-degree angle.

Repeat this procedure with your other hand, and you’ve mastered the matched grip!

This is how you hold stick

Positioning you hands with matched grip

The Traditional Grip

With traditional grip, your right hand grips the stick in a matched grip, while your left hand uses a different grip. Some drummers claim more sensitivity, especially on their snare drum, when using traditional grip. For this reason, you’ll find more jazz drummers than rock drummers using this grip—although even the most traditional jazz drummers throughout history have been known to use matched grip on occasion.

In reality, traditional grip is no better or worse than matched grip. It’s all a matter of what kind of music you’re playing at any moment; many drummers use both grips—sometimes mixing it up within the same song!

To use traditional grip, remember that it’s only your left hand that’s different; use the grip described previously for your right hand. Turn your left hand so that your palm is facing up, and then slip the stick between your second and third fingers, and on through the pocket between your thumb and first finger. There should be about a third of the stick sticking out from the left side of your hand. The stick should rest on your third finger, held in place by your second finger.

Holding the left stick in a traditional grip

When you play traditional grip, your sticks should form a 90-degree angle on your drumhead. As you can see, your right hand is positioned palm down, while your left hand is palm up.

Positioning your hands with traditional grip.

Now that you know how to hold your drum sticks, it’s time to learn how to use them!

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