Drum kit setup

gbftats

Member
I have been playing my tama kit as a 4 piece with traditional grip. I notice since i have switched to this grip that the hat position that feels comfortable is too close to the snare to make good solid fills without whacking the hats with my arm or butt of the stick, With this grip do i just need to compromise with a less comfortable setup or is there a better way? Im a tall guy so i have yet to find a very comfortable setup for my kit.
 
I ran into the same problem when I was learning to play traditional grip. I happen to be a tall guy too. But once I learned to tuck my elbow in a little, it solved the problem.
 
Trad grip really is very impractical and unergonomic for drumkit playing. It's going to feel awkward for sometime while you figure out little ways to feel more comfortable.

The payoff, imo, is the ability to do some very nice comping on the snare. Also, for me, I can do singles much faster with trad than I can with matched.
 
Trad grip really is very impractical and unergonomic for drumkit playing.

Unfortunately, there's a plethora of great drummers who would beg to differ. Trad or matched? Christ, we could be (and will be) here forever debating the merits and pitfalls of both.

Regardless of whether you traditional grip, matched grip or grip the bloody stick with your teeth.....the main aim is to be comfortable with your set up. If something is bothering you, change it. If it's still bothering you, try something else. The beauty of the modern day drum set is that there are so many ways and so many things you can add/take away in order to get things positioned just where you want them.

Go for comfort everytime......you can always change it back.
 
i went ahead and moved the mounted tom a little to left to make more of a triangular pattern between the snare and floor tom. Seems to do the trick. I started picking up traditional grip because it felt easier on my brain to do 2 seperate motions, especially at higher speeds. My singles have greatly improved (Especially at higher speeds)with traditional grip. Although, i must say moving around the kit is quite a bit more awkward.
 
I must be jacked up because I use both trad and matched and can't decide which I like better. I learned traditional first and only ran into matched while in college drum line in 1981 and have been debating which is better ever since.

Just when I thought I had it figured out for me to use traditional all the time, I saw this amazing high school jazz drummer who was a former student of a band mate playing with his HS jazz orchestra and this kid did an amazing solo using matched grip. I was told he was Texas All State in Jazz, so that adds some merit to his playing. There were two professional drummers watching this kid, plus myself.

Back to square one. So I get home and try to emulate this genious using matched grip. It felt pretty good, but I still can't get my rolls down right using matched grip and it did feel odd not using trad grip. With trad grip I can do buzz rolls and all sorts of snare licks that are more difficult using matched grip.

I think in this case it's "whatever feels right".
 
I play both about equally often. I have my snare set nearly flat but facing away from slightly, and the toms face me just slightly, but mostly flat. Instead of fighting the setup difficulties with each grip, I just flip between trad and matched very quickly and use what works best to get round the kit.

Get your set up comfy and where it looks right to you. Since there is no perfect way to set up your drums to accomodate both grips, you might consider practicing switching between grips very quickly. After all, each grip is pretty much the same as the other, just one is palm up and the other is palm down. It also looks neat to flip the sticks around as you switch! Like a freebie showmanship kind of thing....

Peace,
 
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