Tilting the snare

I play matched grip and the snare is angles towards me a little. It means that when i mean to play a rimshot, I play a rimshot. I tried my snare flat before but found it hard on my wrists and too rimshot laden.
 
Matched, tilted slightly towards me, level with the floor tom and a bit above the kick hoop.
 
95% traditional, tilted away and to the right but not drastically.
 
I switch between grips, depending on song or style, and have never had any issue with the tilt of the snare regardless of what grip is being used at the time.
 
My snare probably has somewhere between 5 and 10 degrees of tilt toward me, and I keep it relatively high. I sit kinda low and I don't like hitting my thighs, but with my snare in the position it is, my left hand resting position is just over a 90° angle at my elbow and I come down just slightly to get a rimshot. I never hit my thighs and I never feel like I'm having to force the notes to come out.

There's a funny thing about a flat snare that I realized a few years ago - by putting the drum perfectly flat, your stick still ends up pointing down a little bit because the head is lower than the counterhoop.
 
Since I just started back playing, I noticed that my snare was probably lower than it should have been, which was causing me to slouch. So I raised it and slightly titled towards me.
Have to see where this goes.
 
I thought the tilt of a snare has always come from the roots of the drumset being in marching bands. Like spleen says above, modern equipment allows snares to be dead level, but back in the day they looked like this.

images


which looks a lot like your typical trad grip jazz players tilt down and right

As a drumline teacher, there is also a bit of a movement going on over the last 10 years or so to go back to the tilted snare even though the modern carrier has been flat since probably the late 70's.

I personally have my students on the snare line tilt with traditional grip but I may go back to matched grip this coming year due to player inexperience.

2008_pchagnon_Troopers_snare2.jpg
 
I thought the tilt of a snare has always come from the roots of the drumset being in marching bands. Like spleen says above, modern equipment allows snares to be dead level, but back in the day they looked like this.

images


which looks a lot like your typical trad grip jazz players tilt down and right

Yeah, I didn't march with the cat in your picture. I mean I'm old, but not THAT old! ;-)

You're right, the advent of harnesses changed the drum angle and while several corps over the years experimented with fielding matched-grip snare lines, there's something about traditional grip that always brought them back. I should also note that a few corps have also experimented with tilting snares on modern harnesses (Santa Clara Vanguard and Cavaliers come to mind) but again, the grip stuck but the tilt didn't.

Edit: AND Troopers! (thanks for the pic gmiller)
 
I spent a lot of time thinking about this and experimenting with different angles years ago. I eventually decided it was pointless and it's been perfectly flat since then.
 
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