Developing A KILLER MATCHED GRIP w/ Close-Up PLAYER ANALYSIS

I've been giving a lot of attention recently to the traditional grip and that's mainly just because you know I'm still just sort of settling into it and you know learning how to still learning how to use it so I use it a lot in the recent videos and I gig with it a lot and stuff like that but make no mistake man I still love the match grip you know I spent the last 25 30 years you know working on my match grip and developing it and and I got to be honest man it's actually pretty good i' I've settled into a to a to a grip now that I've been using for the last several years and um it's just a really super comfortable grip for me and it's my comfort zone you know so I mean whenever I'm in a situation I'm not 100% confident maybe using traditional I'll revert back to match and then all the pressure is off and I know everything's going to be awesome I also realized that uh I don't really have any instruction on the match grip so and I know there's there's still a lot of you guys out there there's probably way more viewers out there checking out this channel using the match grip than traditional so I want to give you guys some love too so I just thought it'd be a cool idea to um to put together a little video this is not so much intended to be a how-to type of thing because um there's there's a lot of different ways that you can play the match grip so I'm not going to try to sell you on one way to do it this is more or less just sort of sharing with you guys um the changes that I've made over the last several years and um just kind of let you in on the the grip that I'm using now and um you know maybe give you some tips you if you you want to make some changes to your grip or if it needs improving or you know whatever whatever you want to do this video is all about the match grip and um and I also included some self analysis because sometimes with detailed topics like this it's hard to be accurate 100% of the time so um instead of saying yeah you know I think I just kind of do it this way and kind of do it that way I just recorded myself playing and um and just tried to put a closeup on the hands so you guys could see what's going on with the hands and the cool thing that I found is that uh I've discovered a couple of uh cool things things some some some interesting observations that I made while I was playing because I don't really think about it I'm on autop pilot right when I'm playing so it was a cool sort of way for me to take a look at my own playing so I'll share some of that footage and you know just give you an idea of what my hands look like when I'm playing in any regular type situation so I'm going to start on the practice pad show you a couple of things that I'm doing and then we'll take a look at some of the footage get you some closeup on the hands and uh maybe give you some ideas of any changes you might want to make to your playing and whatever else whatever will help you out all right so if you're ready to go you got yourself a tall drink pair of sticks and a practice pad Let's uh let's get into this whole match grip thing now um as you may know or if you're a new drummer and you may not know Matt drip just kind of refers to um the way the hands look while you're holding the sticks it's called matched because your hands look relatively the same while you're holding the sticks they're they're pretty much even but it's kind of sort of a blanket term because there's a few different types of match grip you have the French grip French grip is basically your palms are just kind of face facing each other thumbs are over top and it's this kind of thing there's the German grip which is like this you know Palms down kind of thing um and then there's the American Grip the American Grip is sort of a nice comfortable sort of happy medium between the two of them so it's kind of a cross between both like your palms are not completely faced down they're not completely facing each other um they're just sort of on a comfortable angle so let's um let's take a look at the right hand or the left hand if you're left-handed and I just want to talk a little bit about the mechanics of the match grip or at least how I'm doing it now now for a long time I kind of played like this [Music] I got uh all four fingers are kind of touching the stick my thumb was uh fairly kind of over top over the top of the stick like that and the fulcrum let's talk about the fulcrum the fulcrum when you're holding a stick um there's there's where you decide to hold it on your hands and there's also on the stick itself there's a balance point this is a perfect sort of balance point where you'll get the most rebound from the stick now for a long time when I uh first started playing and for several years following my fulcrum I was using the index finger for my ful so it was basically like that so this is where I was getting all my Bounce from um with the thumb and the index finger and I was just kind of doing that kind of thing um a few years ago I don't know 8 10 whatever years ago I switched it I switched it to my middle finger and that little change alone changed my grip entirely all of a sudden things just got a lot more comfortable for me personally anyways now I'm not 100% sure if it's my body that adapted to the grip or if it's the grip that adapted to how I play but the marriage regardless of how it happened the marriage is perfect because if you'll observe how I'm playing you know my elbows are just kind of tucked in you know they don't really flare out too much and I use a lot of risk while I'm playing settling into this s sort of American Grip is kind of hybrid kind of thing that I'm doing um that is the best possible grip for how I play because I can stay relaxed everything happens from right here you know my elbows don't have to move my arms don't have to move too much and I can work my wrist right from this position and if you see where sort of my hands are naturally right here um how to sort of on that kind of angle that is exactly the angle that the hands are when you're using the American Grip so that coupled with my new fulcrum right here and again index fingers are just resting on the side of the stick like they're really not doing too much anymore it just really allows me to just kind of flop my wrist around and um this is my main this is home base right here is the American Grip so question is and it's one that I get asked a lot is what grip do you use what's your favorite grip is a German is it French is it American fact of the matter is I use all three my hands are a lot like the transmission in a car and I'm constantly changing gears while I'm playing and it really just kind of depends on what it is that I'm doing so let's um show you a couple of clips of just me playing naturally and I'll show you what I mean so my hands are constantly changing while I'm playing they're in one position if I'm grooving they're in another position if I'm playing on the ride um they morph into something else when I go to do any kind of fast licks on the toms it's not always like this and um and I don't think it should be I think you should really get used to all three you know German French and American um get used to all three of those because there are advantages to using all of them during regular play because the American Grip is sort of a sort of an optimal wrist movement type of grip um I find that I use that when I need any kind of strength or power when I'm grooving or also if I'm playing on the ride now the way I hold the stick um you know the only thing that really changes is the position of my palm and where it's facing the grip itself stays exactly the same so you know if I'm playing like that you know what I mean like at my wrist sort of pointing downwards if I go over to the ride it's the exact same thing but I'm kind of hdden at it this way now um but the grip itself like I said exactly the same [Music] when I go to play anything that requires any sort of speed or power on the toms then I'll revert to more of a French thing I got my thumbs over top my Palms come a little bit closer together you know and I use that sort of approach to it um I just found that it's a lot more accurate than this thing at least for me right there's there's less of a chance of sticks hitting each other when they're like this so um so when I was watching myself I just noticed that whenever I go to do that I change gears and that's what I do I revert to uh more of a French thing to get me around the TOs another really cool thing that I noticed when I was watching myself playing is that the position of the stick changes in my hands depending on what it is I'm trying to do and um it's just a natural sort of instinctive thing that happens so if I'm doing something really delicate or something if I want to play nice and quiet um if I'm on the ride for instance what'll happen is the stick will kind of float out to my fingertips and I'll do that kind of thing so you know if I'm playing any type of jazz swing or whatever that's sort of the approach that I take um for that thing and if I'm also doing some delicate stuff on the snare or on the toms or whatever um I end up choking up on the stick a little bit so I'll go from here and it'll just naturally kind of creep up like that and I'm playing a little bit more from the middle of the stick butt ends are sticking out and you know I'm I'm reverting back to this whole American thing and I can get really sort of nice and quiet and and Technical and very Dynamic when I do that type of thing because I can utilize the wrist and I'm I'm also on a prime spot for [Music] accents just by snapping my wrist down so um so yeah I just I just sort of instinctively end up choking up on the stick when I do delicate stuff like that and then in an instant when I need more power the stick will just kind of creep back up and I end up holding it way back here at the butt end and I'm back to that whole American thing so when I really need a ton of power I'm swinging it from way back here using the same grip swinging the stick from way back here and I get a ton of power so you know switching from back and forth um as far as a position of the stick that happens in an instant like it's just super easy to do and it like I said the stick just kind of floats to a different position in the hands when I need them to [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so French grip it's great for using the fingers if you want speed um you know thumbs are over top Palms facing in and you can get that kind of thing happening so when you're playing your Tom fills and all that kind of stuff French grip is great German grip GP Palms down approach that whole bouncing the tennis ball thing um the German grip is a lot more about the wrist at least the way I use it um and it just allows you to get some really nice power out of that grip so for accents on the snare um you know when you're doing any kind of grooving stuff like that just allows you to stay really nice and relax and work Almost 100% from the wrist German grip is great for that American Grip for me is a great sort of Homebase starting point you know somewhat full-time grip because your hands are in a perfect position to go either way so if you're starting from the American it only takes that to go to French and that the German so if you're starting with the American you're just in a prime spot to go either way so there it is man hope that helped you out thanks for sticking it out I know this was a long video um but it was packed full of information if you stuck it out you got some good ammo now and uh yeah man give it a shot spend the next few months developing those and you know hopefully you'll uh amp up your plan don't forget to tell people where you learn this like subscribe see you next video [Music]