How to Hold Drum Sticks

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Shaun Schaefer on behalf of Expert Village and today, we're going to learn the basics in rock drumming. I like to call it "Rock Drumming 101 - The Basics". Okay, so we're going to be going over tons of things today, but one of the main things that you need to know how to do to play basic drum beat is how to hold the drum sticks. It's very simple. So first, take your left hand and extend it out like you're going to shake someone's hand. Okay? And then take your stick and just place it, right kind of along with your thumb. And leave and inch, maybe an inch and a half or so, of the stick hanging below. This part, it's called the butt of the stick. Hang it, let it hang past your hand about an inch or so. Now what you want to do, is wrap your fingers around, just like that and then you want to stick your thumb actually on the side. Okay? Now if I flip this over like this, see I play with kinda a looser grip, so you can see the gap between my thumb and forefinger. And this is actually the, we call it the fulcrum. This is where everything comes from when you play. Everything comes from here. You use your back fingers too, but basically everything comes from here. So when you play, have your wrist flat like towards the ceiling or the sky and just lift straight up. Just lift your wrist straight up and down. Okay? And if you look how loose I'm holding the stick, it's that simple, I hold it very loose. Because the tighter you hold it, the harder it is to play for a long period of time, because you start tightening up. And eventually your muscles just can't do it anymore. So, that is the proper way to hold a stick, and you do the same thing with your right hand. Okay? Act like I'm going to shake someone's hand, put it in there, wrap around, thumb on the side. It's important that the thumb is on the side, that it's not on top and it's not underneath. You don't hold it like a bicycle handle bars, ya know, put the thumbs on the side. Okay?"