Drum rudiments — the story behind the Stick Technique book

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Because Stick Technique is such a totally unique book, I often get asked how it came about, so I’ve decided to tell you the story.

Well guys n’ gals, I have been teaching drumming and drumstick technique now for 20 odd years — since I was in high school! — and I have taught the whole range of students, from five year old beginners to advanced players. Through all this time, I have never found a text book that I felt satisfactorily covered the subject which to me was the most important: stick technique. There seems to be countless books of exercises, but not one reliable source of information on how to execute them.

This was not something that bothered me hugely till a couple of years after I finished my masters degree in percussion performance. This was when I began to devote even more time to teaching, and to specializing in teaching snare drum technique. Once again the absence of any reference — let alone a definitive reference — on the subject of stick technique made itself very obvious.

I thought about this, and about how I personally developed a technique which allowed me to play the most difficult rudimental snare drum solos. I remembered that whilst at university and searching for information myself, no one teacher or book quite seemed to say the same as another. It was often difficult to decide between the teachings of one drummer and another — even if they both had great ability! It seemed they often contradicted one another, and they often seemed pretty sketchy about the exact details of why they taught certain techniques.

As I approached my honours year, I took on the enormous task of changing my grip from traditional to matched grip. It was fortunate that I was living in a house at the time where there were several books on basic physiology and biology on the shelves. As I spent hour after hour trying to work out how to make my left hand do what my right hand made look easy, I began to study these books, in order to help figure out how the hands and grip actually functioned.

To my surprise I discovered that many of the things I had been taught about drumming technique didn’t make a lot of sense from a biological point of view. I also discovered that there were things I could do with my hands to achieve the desired results that no one had ever mentioned.

So — back to a few years later… I needed a book which didn’t exist. A book that explained all the technical stuff which I had to figure out for myself, and which no teacher had ever quite explained properly.

The first edition of “Stick Technique” was written in 1998 to fill that gap — to be the book that I wish I had when I first started learning, providing information for drummers of all kinds and levels on correct technique, and on how to play. It also addressed the issue of why we do things in a certain way, which is something that many texts tend to conspicuously avoid.

This second edition of “Stick Technique” is written in 2007 — almost a decade later. So what has changed? Well the techniques are the same, and have stood up to the test of 10 more years — but after teaching them for that time I have refined them, and improved the way I explain them to students. This second edition is bigger and has more and better photos. It goes into greater detail and covers every aspect of drumstick technique there is.

So if YOU want to truly understand drumming technique and improve your drumming, simply visit www.sticktechnique.com.