It's not me, it's the sticks!

[Julia]

I was using my VF X8Ds, which are super long, but in playing around with some other pairs, I noticed that I am a little bit better at playing hand-hand unison when the sticks are shorter.  I have no idea why.  It has been my experience, though, that switching sticks frequently has tweaked things about my grip and playing just enough that I can get a feel for the technique, and then go back to other sticks later and find that I do just fine.  I did this a lot on my practice pad before getting a kit.

So I dug out the shortest pair of sticks I have, Promark's Rock Maple Jazz Café MJZ-3, 15 1/8”.  They are also the narrowest sticks I have (.495”).    

This may not be the root of the problem, but hopefully this will help me get a better feel for unison playing.  

Another advantage:  They are thin and maple, therefore easy to break, so I can have my stick-breaking milestone party a bit sooner. ✔️ 

 

[Grant]

Great point @Julia. Sticks DEFINITELY have an effect on your playing, at least to some degree. The argument for this is pretty simple...if your sticks were only 4 inches long it would affect your playing, or if they were 2 feet long they would also affect your playing. Of course sticks that people actually use only have very minor changes in them (quarter or eighth inch differences) but they absolutely have an affect on your playing!

[Tim B. - SDS Staff Teacher]

Hey Julia! That is interesting that you find certain things so much easier with different stick types. I have no scientific evidence to back this up - but I think a LOT of the "I have to have this stick to play XYZ way" is 80% psychology. That certainly doesn't make it invalid. But I've always thought that most of what sticks do for us is make us FEEL a certain way. 

So it might be a fun "mental exercise" to try and use a certain pair of sticks and not load it with "well this stick makes me play like X" and just try to approach your playing in a less stick dependent way. 

To give you an analogy. When people are learning stage acting, often the director will say "emote more on stage the audience can't feel it" and the actor will try to emote more not realizing that what they feel is "emoting more" is BARELY noticeable to an audience member. So they have to REALLY EMOTE a ton more than they are comfortable with for it finally translate to the audience. In the same way. I think when we pick up a stick that isn't our "normal stick" it feels SO DIFFERENT from what we usually use, when really it is only a fraction of a measurement here and there of difference.  

[Julia]

@Tim B. You make some very good points there!  I'm certain in some cases that it's purely mechanics - when I tried thicker sticks, even though I really didn't want to, traditional grip got much easier.  Now I can play with any diameter stick.  In other cases, though, you're right on point when you say I'm thinking “This stick makes me play like X".  You've inspired me to try an experiment — choosing my sticks at random and just seeing what happens.  Thank you!