What are the pros and cons of Traditional Grip vs. Matched Grip for snare and drumset?

Question

So far I've just been learning matched grip for my snare and drumset playing, but I see of lot of people using traditional grip as well. I'm curious, what are some of the pros and cons of matched vs. traditional? Is it hard to develop them both at the same time? Where is traditional most commonly used and why?

Answer 1

Traditional Grip Pros:

• Very common in Marching Percussion
• Looks 'cooler' (subjective)
• Easy to play on a tilted drum, harder to play on a level drum.
• Easier to play very soft as you are pulling the stick down instead of pushing it.

Traditional Grip Cons:

• Harder to keep both of your Right and Left hand sounding the same.
• Slightly more difficult to learn properly as it involves less common muscles and the motion is awkward to start out with.
• Harder to move around and play different drums.

The pros and cons for Matched Grip are basically the opposite of those for traditional.

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I am and advocate of learning matched first, and traditional later if you need/want to. I regularly play with both and my left hand is equally good in either grip, although it does take some extra effort to keep things that way.

Traditional grip is most commonly used in marching percussion because it is great for playing on a tilted drum (in fact, that's why it was invented). Many jazz drummers use traditional, but I've noticed that most of them switch to matched when they actually need to move around the kit.

It ultimately comes down to what works for you. :D

Answer 2

I have nothing against traditional grip, but if you've made it so far without it, why change something if it ain't broken? Keep in mind why traditional grip came to be. When you know the history, you'll see how little sense it might actually make to learn it for a drumset player.

I'm not saying it's a bad technique, but are there enough real benefits for you personally to learn a new grip? How much time do you think it would take to get comfortable with it and what else could you achieve in that time. That's a question I would really ask myself before learning a whole new grip/technique.

Answer 3

It's mostly a feeling-thing. Traditional grip gives you a different kind of control, in my experience it allows finer nuances of sound: you can freely adjust the angle in which the stick hits the drumhead, and also the after-impact pressure – that's also possible in matched grip, but it feels less "integrated" to me. Apart from this, traditional keeps the left hand better out of the way of the right one; but this should not really be a problem anyway.

Answer 4

I would think you would want to master the basic rudiments (particularly the rolls) with one grip first before tackling a second grip. So yes, I think it would be harder to learn them both at the "same" time. That said I learned both grips fairly early in my drumming journey and I'm glad I did. For whatever reason, I was more willing when I was younger to spend lots of time on technique and learning a new grip. I was taught traditional and learned matched when I started playing a kit. I used to always revert to traditional when I needed to do a roll. That got old, so I learned to roll with matched. To this day, I am still more comfortable rolling with trad. grip. Now when I play I'm always sliding between the two grips. Sometimes parts of a song compel me to go for traditional, sometimes matched so I like having the choice.

There is a video "Neil Peart: A Work in Progress", where he "reinvents" his drumming by learning trad. grip and playing with a more circular motion. I didn't find it very convincing but you might want to watch it to get his perspective.

Answer 5

The traditional grip was developed by marching drummers to accomodate a drum hanging from a strap at a steep angle. Trad grip was pretty much the only grip in the early days of "trap set" drumming, and remains popular in jazz. Having said that, Ian Froman is a jazz artist and teacher who wrote an article about this in Modern Drummer. He plays mostly trad grip, but would learn matched grip if he had the time, and he teaches matched grip. See also Billy Cobham, Simon Phillips, Carter Beauford, Lenny White et al, who play open-handed, i.e., they play the ride rhythm with the left hand on a right-handed kit - the advantages are that you don't have to cross your hands to play either a ride rhythm on the hihat or accents on the toms while riding. People usually play open-handed with matched grip as opposed to trad grip.