to me it doesnt matter that the drums arent tilted anymore and obviously it doesnt matter to top drum corps.....the way to fix this problem is to simply drop the left arm a bit and both arms LOOK parallel to the drum......then traditional is used and it looks badass.....i play trad. btw

My drumline has a word we use for lines who play match, but i cant say it on this forum. Its more or less the word wussy, but i think you guys can figure out what it is. To me match stick is for junior high kids. Thats just my opinion.

If all the drum corps played matched, everyone would say matched is better and looks cooler.

True story.

I'm willing to bet that if in 2009 any world class drum corps used matched grip and won, many drumlines across the nation would switch to using matched. If this happened the next year then even more would switch. If this process happened three years in a row then I'm willing to bet money that more than three fourths of all the drumlines who are aware of DCI will be playing matched.

logistically, there is no need for traditional grip with non-tilted snare drums. Traditional grip was only created as a solution for playing the sling-held drums of the Revolutionary War times. The reason so many people still use it is because it is what it is, tradition.

Yeah, i agree. I mean, traditional is the "traditional" way to drum. dating back to the civil war or whatever, so why not keep it alive. But i prefer it over matched, because i was taught threw the traditional grip, and i find matched hard to play with, even sometimes on set.

The only reason drum and bugle corps still consists of only brass (and not even bugles anymore) is because it's tradition. Sometimes tradition is just as important as the medium it takes place in.

As far as it goes there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two. They make the same sound, one just looks a little bit more... I dunno... "traditional"?



Arguably. Maybe. Probably not. Matched grip has very little to do with the quality of performance that takes place at that level anymore. Everyone's techniques are so refined and so precise that the only difference between grips is talent. Most people would see, correctly, that it was simply because of a superior line, not because the match grip allowed them to play more cleanly.



That's probably true. It doesn't, however, speak any volume for the drawbacks of traditional grip.

It would be awesome if some of the 'big name' caption heads came together and took a lower ranking drum corps and switched it to matched... then tons of people would try out and the line would place well in the scores and then who knows? Maybe they could start a matched grip trend.

I play both evenly and worked hard to get technique good and flowing in each. I hate when i felt awkward playing matched.

I prefer traditional, simply because that's what I was taught when I started out. It's kind of become habit for me, when I put on a snare, I switch to trad. I just think it feels right, I mean, I can see where matched would have some advantages, but I still think traditional is the way to go.