Mallet Grips

Two Mallet Grip

Hold loosely on the mallet while still maintaining control, your thumb and the first knuckle of your index finger will create stability in the fulcrum

German Grip

Held "horizontally", ie. palm facing downwards, and strike downwards by bending wrist.

French Grip

Held "Vertically", ie. thumb facing up, and strike by twisting wrist.

American Grip

Between the German and French Grips, which the palm is facing about 45 to 30 degrees inside, and strike inwards by bending wrist.

Four Mallet Grip

Some pieces call for four mallets to play. This allows more tones to be played at once. There are two common techniques to playing with four mallets.

Traditional Grip (or Cross Grip)

The traditional grip is the oldest, and arguably the most natural way to hold 4 mallets. The shafts of the mallets simply cross 3/4 of the way down from the yarn head.

Advantages

• It takes less time to be successful with this grip.

• Used by most professional orchestral percussionists.

• Good for any application.

Disadvantages

• Standard technique book not available. The Nancy Zeltsman guide is the best resource I’ve found.

• Larger intervals are more difficult to reach. It would be very difficult to play an octave starting on the lowest C of a 5 octave instrument.

• Mallet independence is more difficult in early stages.

Steven’s Grip (or modified Musser Grip)

This contemporary grip created first by Clair Omar Musser and later tweaked by Leigh Howard Stevens has gained popularity in the past 20 years, especially in the DCI world. This grip feels unnatural at first, but allows for incredible mallet independence. Theoretically, when one mallet is moving the other should remain still.

The most popular resource for teaching this method is Leigh Howard Steven’s Method of Movement (also known as MOM in the percussion world). If a student rigorously read and followed the steps in this book, they could develop proper technique over time.

Advantages

• • Great Mallet Independence

  • Larger intervals are reached effortlessly

  • The book Method of Movement by Leigh Howard Stevens describes the technique in detail

Disadvantages

• • Awkward to learn at first (a friend once told me you shouldn’t have to read an encyclopedia to learn a grip. There’s some truth to that)