The entire time I've played 4-mallet percussion, I've used Traditional Grip, so Steven's Grip is excruciatingly difficult for me. I know the grip, but I'm not good with it. For instance, when playing with the inner mallets, the outer ones look like they're performing the worm, my double stops lack any form of power, etc. Any routines/warm-ups/help to make me not suck quite as much at it?

A lot of it may be that you're new to the technique. Keep practicing, and it should get better.

For double stops, do 8 on a chord. Try focusing on one hand at a time at first to make sure your mallets are in the right positions on your hands. You can do this chromatic, circle of 4ths and circle of 5ths.

For mallet independence, try different permutations such as 1234, 2341, 3412, 4123, etc. You can also do this in chromatic, circle of 4ths and 5ths.

Since you already know traditional/Burton, you could keep playing what you know, but in Stevens. You've probably already done what I've suggested. But it just takes some time to develop the technique. Play with a metronome and in a mirror as much as possible.

Find some audition packets and play through those, too. There are some that come with manuals with pictures so you can make sure that you are doing it right. If nothing else, you can buy Method of Movement by Stevens. That'll have exercises and tips in there.

And if that didn't help, I apologize. It's pretty hard to explain things like that over forums.

The only way to build Stevens grip chops is to muscle through every single stroke and max out the velocity of each stroke with heavy mallets.

And honestly, keep the exercises simple if you're just going for chops. If you're too worried about hitting the right notes, you won't be able to focus on technique. If you want to focus on getting a solid double vertical, then just do a basic double vertical exercise with block chords going up chromatically. If you want to focus on getting good inner mallet independence, pick your favorite 2 mallet exercise and play that with 4 mallets in your hand.

Thank you both for your insight on this, it really helps. I'm going to try all this tomorrow, when I get access to a marimba.

Buy Steven's book, Method of Movement. He addresses pretty much any and every question you could ever have about the grip.

As a side note, make sure that you stay RELAXED. It's easy when you're trying to build chops to start having some tension in your hands, but ultimately tension trumps any advantages the grip may have and also cause potential medical problems in the long run.

Out of curiosity, why are you switching? There are plenty of great players out there who play traditional grip (Nancy Zeltsman, Nanae Mimura, Marta Klimasara, Keiko Abe, etc.).

Thanks for the advice guys. As for the reason of switching, my drum instructor told me that steven's grip was much better for marimba than traditonal, and that I wouldn't be much of a marimbist if I didn't use it. Could I really go with just traditional grip the entire time?

You probably could make it without stevens, at least until you try out for drum corps, a lot of those require you to know stevens. But even in high school there are advantages and disadvantages to every grip, and knowing more than one grip can only help you.

Steven's grip is not an easy thing to pull off. It is my perferred grip, though its a very muscle demanding one. Practice and practice will help. Always make sure you are useing the right technique. You could check into the book, Simply 4 by Gifford Howarth.