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Should You Use French Or German Grip?

There's only one way to find out

In the previous part to this series on grip, we talked about Why Your Drumstick Grip Is So Important. Now we're going to look at what type of grip you should be using.

To know which grip is best for you, you're going to have to spend a bit of time with each one, discover the benefits and use the one that works best for you.

I'll give you my personal recommendations in this article but everyone is different so what works best for me may not be what works best for you.

Before you go any further make sure you are familiar with What Forearm Rotation Is and How Your Wrist Works. These two posts fully explain the anatomical concepts used in this article.

French grip

For this to work, your hand needs to be halfway between the pronatated and supinated position. Your thumbs should be on top of the stick and your palms should be facing each other. Take at look at my butler, Jarvis, in the left hand photo. You'll see that in this position your sticks will be nearly parallel to each other.

You play notes by either:

• Rotating your forearm toward the drum
• Using ulnar deviation, or
• Using your elbow (similar to how you would use a hammer)

French grip is also great for allowing your fingers access to the stick and feels comfortable when you play straight, unaccented notes on your hi-hats or ride.

German grip

Your hand must be in the pronated position. Your palms facing down the way this time and your thumbs pointing at each other. Your arms now swing out a little to the side and your sticks make an upside-down "V" with an angle between them.

This lets you move your wrist in the most natural way possible: flexion and extension (also called Wrist Technique).

German grip is great if you need a bit more control or if you have to play accents or notes of different volumes eg. when using the Moeller Method.

So which one should you use?

It depends a lot on what you're playing. If you're playing lots of quick notes then french is a good grip because it lets you easily trigger the stick with your fingers. If you're playing lots of accents and ghost notes then German is the best one because it gives you more control over stick heights. I use both of these techniques in my playing. It's probably about 20% French and 80% German.

So the title of this article is misleading: "Should you use french or german grip?" Well why not use both? Or neither of them at all? Often I'll play with my hands halfway in between the two positions (sometimes called american grip). Or I'll play with my hand fully supinated if I need to move about the kit quickly or just want a lazy way of playing my ride.

Technique is something that you should learn once, forget about and then focus on making music.

Alexander

So which grip you been using so far? Do you intend to stick with it? Maybe you've tried both? If so, which one works better for you?

Leave your thoughts and wisdom in the comments below.

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Related posts:

1. What Is Forearm Rotation? Forearm rotation is the name given to the movement you...
2. The Most Overlooked Part Of Your Grip I use this phrase a lot but... This changed everything...
3. 7 Simple Ways You Can Turn A Bad Grip Into A Good One Last part in the grip series By now you know...
4. Why Your Drumstick Grip Is So Important Drums are a weird instrument With most other instruments you...
5. Drummers, This Is How Your Wrist Works If you only ever read 1 article on anatomy... ...make...

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