Which part of what finger should create the Fulcrum?

This topic in some part relates to the previous videoblog on “German grip” VS “French grip”. For the sake of this discussion, I am going to assume that you have taken my advice, and developed a more “German” style grip. This basically means that your hands will be held in a position while playing such that the thumbs are on the side of the stick, and the palms of the hands are facing downwards.

One of the whole points of developing this type of grip is that the wrists have the ability to function effectively. For this reason it is not uncommon to see drummers using this grip relying more and more on the wrists, and not really using rebound through the fulcrum at all. In this scenario, the stick butt is held primarily with the little fingers, and other rear fingers, and the whole hand is moved for every stroke.

Now here is a very direct answer to the question in the title of this blog.

Those who have read my book Stick Technique will know that in my opinion, there should be a fulcrum formed between the side of the index finger, and the main pad of the thumb. The contact point on the index finger should be just behind the middle knuckle — which is where a flat hand will naturally position the digit against the tip of the thumb.

So why in this spot? Well — a few reasons.

We just said that the finger naturally meets the thumb there anyway. That’s a great reason! It means that the hand is in its most relaxed position when it is gripping the stick, and there is no excess tension produced. If we want to play fast and with stamina, then that’s very important, because any tension in the hand is the enemy of speed and stamina.

Reason number two, is that we can bend the index finger at this middle knuckle, and get the fingertip under the stick to help with finger control along with all the other fingers. So we now have four fingers for finger control rather than three. Not only that, but the index finger is actually way more sensitive than the others, so it is an important finger to be controlling the stick with and we don’t want to effectively waste it by only using it for holding the stick. If you don’t believe me — think about this... You are most likely at a computer reading this. What finger are you using on your primary mouse button? The index finger? Why?..... You see my point!

Many drummers who use this “German” style of grip, will often tend to “relax” the index finger so that the contact point sits more towards the end of the finger, or in even more extreme cases such that the index finger sits more on top of the stick, and the fulcrum — if any — is actually created more between the thumb and the second or third finger. This seems a bit silly to me as I can’t see any discernible advantage to having the fulcrum on lower fingers, and having fewer fingertips for finger control is surely a disadvantage.

There are some drummers — particularly amongst jazz drummers — who suggest that by having NO fulcrum in the instant when the stick contacts the drum head, the sound is quite different. The idea is that by “letting go” of the stick at the contact point, the stick itself is also allowed to vibrate, contributing to the sound.

Having both experimented with this extensively myself, and also having listened carefully to other drummers who do this demonstrate the difference in sound — my conclusion is that there is no real discernible difference in sound, or at least not a difference which is significant enough to warrant such a compromise in technique.

I suspect that most drummers who achieve a difference in sound by doing this, are in fact not otherwise getting a proper rebound around the fulcrum. The real difference they are hearing, is that without “letting go” of the stick, the stick is “choking” the vibration of the drum head. With proper rebound of the stick around the fulcrum, the skin is allowed to vibrate fully AND the rebound energy of the stick can be absorbed back into the fingers, and reused for the next notes.

The problem occurs only with an insufficiently developed fulcrum which does not allow a proper rebound, and therefore the stroke tends to choke the drum skin vibration. Rather than develop the fulcrum, these drummers develop a technique which lets go of the stick completely at the point of contact to alleviate the choking effect. This certainly works — and very well — but the disadvantage is that the rebound energy is absorbed and wasted rather than reused. My conclusion would be that this technique works, but is not much good if speed and control are concerns as well as sound.

Once we establish that it is better to allow the rebound energy to rotate the stick around the fulcrum, then where to create the fulcrum in the hand is a relatively simple matter. (Where to create it along the stick is another question — that is covered in the next posting.) As discussed above, the more fingers we have under the stick to control that rebound the better. This means that behind the middle knuckle of the index finger is the obvious choice — for the reasons explained above.