DRUMMER CAFE - Community Forum

I have switched to traditional grip because I like the snare nuances I get, and it is working out great except I can't seem to find the magic setup between the snare/high hat/1st rack. My problem is rolling to the 1st rack from the snare without hitting the high hat with with either my left hand or back half of the stick. Currently my high hat is about 10-10:30, 1st rack is at 12, and the snare directly in front of the rack. I have tried moving the high hat closer to 9, but then my balance is all off. What I have done to get by is lower the high hat down, and it sort of works, but I can't get any stick height with the left hand if I am riding the snare. All of my drum friends locally play matched grip. Any insight would be great. Thanks!

I've played traditional for several years. Experiment, my setup is with the bass straight in front. My snare is between my legs with the hat about 9:30. As far a my tom goes they're usually about an inch above the bass. But the location may vary as to which set I use. A couple Mapex sets has tom mounts off the center of the bass, as does my old Slingerland set. But my DW set has tom mounts from my two main cymbal stands as I use two 21" rides. In all cases I've had to make my rides a little higher, and tilt my cymbals a little more. Mainly because playing traditional I tend to tilt my snare a little more away from me to achieve the accents and drive I like from my left hand. Thus my hat is more to my left than many guys. I tend to like my snare just high enough so my leg doesn't hit the snare while playing. My hat just a little higher than my snare. I've tried tilting my snare down on the front, but hated it playing traditional. Old school, but works for me.  ;)

im not entirely sure if this will help, but try moving your snare until the middle of it is *almost* lined up the the outer edge of the tom rims- this will mean to hit the tom your left hand will come over to the right as well.

In my case the bass is in front. With two toms centered over the bass. Snare between my legs with the high hat to the left of the snare. Two floor toms to the right of me. As I'm playing my body is pointed left, but I'm facing forward looking over my bass and toms. My two rides about shoulder heigth. Small crash to my left, and big crash to my right. I suppose it may depend on what you call "centered". This is the way I learned to play traditional method. It's also the way the Army band wanted us to play a set. Bass drum pointed towards the audience.

I will have to try some of this when I get home.
Chip71, if your body is facing slightly to the left does it make it harder to get to your floor toms?
Mapexdrummer: I think I get what you are saying. Since I play a four piece, that might work. What I am trying to avoid is that when I hit my rack with my left (trad grip) hand, the stick/head angle is much greater (because my left hand is much higher as it is trying to avoid hitting the high hat) than my right hand. This causes the roll to sound like poop because of the two different sounds made by each hand. For my snare and floor tom, I am able to match the head/stick angle fairly well so they sound much better.

yea. When I  play trad grip on toms I usually have to turn my hand slightly to adjust the angle. It usuallly is more of an arm rotation than a wrist rotation, but it depends on how you come down on your toms. When I play trad I use some serious moeller technique, so it usually works. But yea, small adjustments to the snare positioning *may* help.

I have three big sets (6pc or more), and one 4 piece set. It doesn't matter if I use a big set or small set. I sit the same direction no matter what set I use. My feet are still the same way. I tilt my cymbals, snare, toms all the same no matter which set I use. I will play traditional on the snare, but switch quite often without thinking about it. My toms on the bass have a semi-steep angel, but both of my floor toms I tend to keep flat with no pitch on those. I suppose I angle my snare on the stand just like I would a marching drum. I grew up playing both in school band and then the Army band. So even tho I spent some time experimenting, I always went back to playing my snare at that marching angle. That's just the way I was taught to do it, so that's what feels normal to me. Over time I have learned to use both my wrists and fingers for feel and control. 

I never used moeller when I played matched, but I find myself using it quite a bit now.

yea, moeller is awesome, esp. for the stuff I play. enables a lot of ghost note to accent stuff.

hows the left hand tom/sn/hh coming along?

I had the same problem.  Then I realized why a lot of old time drummers had the rack tom tilted at an angle, from side to side. (Do a google image search for Gene Krupa.)

With that set up, the butt end of my trad grip stick is up in the air, over my high hat.

It works better if the snare is also set at a similar angle, but I prefer to keep mine fairly flat.

Well, I had it partly right. The big change apparently is to lower the high hat pretty much to the level of the snare. I did the search like you said and that seems to be the key. I did a you tube search Krupa and watched the Krupa/Rich jam on the Sammy Davis show. They both pretty much played identical sets. If the snare is the middle of the clock it seems they played low high hats at 9 o'clock, one rack about 11 o'clock, ride at 2/2:30 or so, and two floor toms on the right. I did note the snare tilt, and Buddy Rich really plays with his snare up high! Anyway,  I am really digging the trad grip thing. Changes the feel of everything.

I've been working on trad grip for quite a while and I still don't have it anywhere near my matched grip.

I use matched grip when I'm playing with musicians, but use trad grip for solo practice because, for some reason, I'm a lot more relaxed and fluid with trad grip.  With matched, there's always a tendency to "mucscle through" difficult stuff.  With trad, as soon as I tense up I can't do much of anything.

Tweaked the set some more using Chip's style (I think). I now sit slightly to the right (5:30 ish) and face my body to the left. I moved the high high closer to 9 o'clock. This set up works great because now my feet can cover both of my pedals better, I can get to all of the toms (using either grip). The only downside is not my floor tom is a little bit of a turn to get to but it is really not that bad. Thanks guys!

It took me a little while to get the use of two floor toms down. It's just a little further body rotation. But the use of those toms playing with them somewhat flat keeps me from spearing the heads. It also gives me good tone control when using more toms. I always have somewhere to land to mix up the sound while I'm searching for my next sound. Just more variety in my sound. Now remember, I not only use the center of my drums but get other sounds from different locations on the head. In reality even tho many times I'll have 4 toms, I'm getting the sound of 8 drums by where I hit them. I'll also get different sounds from where and how I hit the snare head. Thus I have several options as a resourse within my playing. When I play traditional I tend to mix it up a bit more, and then when I switch to matched I provide good drive to my playing. I often do this without even thinking about it. If you can look at the VIP Gallery under "In Action" you can see my setup and the angles I use.  :)

I don't have a VIP membership, so I don't think I can view the gallery.

The link is in the green banner at the top of the page.  (It took me a minute to find it, too.)