Playing With the French Grip

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Frank. In this clip we’re going to talk about French grip, French grip for the matched grip. In traditional grip, the basic two grips matched and traditional, in traditional and matched grip the right hand is going to choose the style. Is it going to be American, is it going to be French, is it going to German? In matched grip, both hands have to make the decision; you have to decide what it’s going to be for you. French grip is generally the weakest of the three variations; there’s again the American grip, it’s in the middle of the road; the German grip is a lot of power, and then the French grip is a lot of finesse. It started with tympani players, those big kettle drums with orchestras and bands, and they’re trying to mostly draw the sound out of the instrument, and so a lot of it had to do with up stroke, not powered down but drawing the sound out of the drum. So a lot of it is fingers, you’ll notice my wrists aren’t moving very much, most of it is fingers. When those tympani players want more power, they start putting in wrist and you can of course increase how many hinge groups you have, shoulder, elbow, wrist and then those fingers. The more hinge groups you add, the more power you’re going to have…in another clip we’ll look at how to use this and the other grips around the drum set. Most players especially on the drum set don’t stick with one grip, but they do use depending on where they’re going and what they’re doing and what the music needs—the French grip a lot."