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A drum stick (or drumstick) is a type of
percussion mallet A percussion mallet or beater is an object used to strike or beat a percussion instrument to produce its sound. The term beater is slightly more general. A mallet is normally held in the hand while a beater may be a foot or mechanically operat ...
used particularly for playing
snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...
,
drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...
, and some other
percussion instrument A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...
s, and particularly for playing
unpitched percussion An unpitched percussion instrument is a percussion instrument played in such a way as to produce sounds of indeterminate pitch, or an instrument normally played in this fashion. Unpitched percussion is typically used to maintain a rhythm or to ...
. Specialized beaters used on some other percussion instruments, such as the metal beater used with a
triangle A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...
or the
mallets A mallet is a tool used for imparting force on another object, often made of rubber or sometimes wood, that is smaller than a maul or beetle, and usually has a relatively large head. General overview The term is descriptive of the ...
used with
tuned percussion A pitched percussion instrument (also known as a melodic or tuned percussion instrument) is a percussion instrument used to produce musical notes of one or more pitches, as opposed to an unpitched percussion instrument which is used to produce ...
(such as
xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Each bar is an idiophone tuned to a pitch of a musical scale, whether pentatonic or heptatonic in the case of many African ...
and
timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
), are not normally referred to as drumsticks. Drumsticks generally have all of the following characteristics: * They are normally supplied and used in pairs. * They may be used to play at least some sort of
drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...
(as well as other instruments). * They are normally used only for unpitched percussion.


Construction

The archetypical drumstick is turned from a single piece of wood, most commonly of
hickory Hickory is a common name for trees composing the genus ''Carya'', which includes 19 species accepted by ''Plants of the World Online''. Seven species are native to southeast Asia in China, Indochina, and northeastern India (Assam), and twelve ...
, less commonly of
maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...
, and least commonly but still in significant numbers, of
oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...
. Drumsticks of the traditional form are also made from metal,
carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers ( Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon comp ...
, and other modern materials. The ''tip'' or ''bead'' is the part most often used to strike the instrument. Originally and still commonly of the same piece of wood as the rest of the stick, sticks with
nylon Nylon is a family of synthetic polymers characterised by amide linkages, typically connecting aliphatic or Polyamide#Classification, semi-aromatic groups. Nylons are generally brownish in color and can possess a soft texture, with some varieti ...
tips have also been available since 1958. In the 1970s, an
acetal In organic chemistry, an acetal is a functional group with the connectivity . Here, the R groups can be organic fragments (a carbon atom, with arbitrary other atoms attached to that) or hydrogen, while the R' groups must be organic fragments n ...
tip was introduced. Tips of whatever material are of various shapes, including acorn, barrel, oval, teardrop, pointed and round. The ''shoulder'' of the stick is the part that tapers towards the tip, and is normally slightly convex. It is often used for playing the
bell A bell /ˈbɛl/ () is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be m ...
of a
cymbal A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sou ...
. It can also be used to produce a cymbal crash when applied with a glancing motion to the bow or edge of a cymbal, and for playing ride patterns on china, swish, and pang cymbals. The ''shaft'' is the body of the stick, and is cylindrical for most applications including drum kit and orchestral work. It is used for playing cross stick and applied in a glancing motion to the rim of a cymbal for the loudest cymbal crashes. The ''butt'' is the opposite end of the stick to the tip. Some rock and metal musicians use it rather than the tip.


Conventional numbering

Plain wooden drumsticks are most commonly described using a number to describe the weight and diameter of the stick followed by one or more letters to describe the tip. For example, a 7A is a common jazz stick with a wooden tip, while a 7AN is the same weight of stick with a nylon tip, and a 7B is a wooden tip but with a different tip profile, shorter and rounder than a 7A. A 5A is a common wood tipped rock stick, heavier than a 7A but with a similar profile. The numbers are most commonly odd but even numbers are used occasionally, in the range 2 (heaviest) to 11 (lightest). The exact meanings of both numbers and letters differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, and some sticks are not described using this system at all, just being known as ''jazz'' (typically a 7A, 8A or 8D) or ''heavy rock'' (typically a 5B) for example. The most general purpose stick is a 5A. However, there is no one stick for any particular style of music.


Grip

There are two main ways of holding drumsticks: *
Traditional grip In percussion, grip refers to the manner in which the player holds the sticks or mallets, whether drum sticks or other mallets. For some instruments, such as triangles and gongs, only a single mallet or beater is normally used, held either ...
, in which right and left hands use different grips. *
Matched grip In percussion, grip refers to the manner in which the player holds the Drum stick, sticks or Percussion mallet, mallets, whether drum sticks or other mallets. For some instruments, such as triangle (musical instrument), triangles and gongs, on ...
, in which the two hand grips are mirror-image. Traditional grip was developed to conveniently play a
snare drum The snare drum (or side drum) is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often u ...
while riding a horse, and was documented by Sanford A. Moeller in '' The Art of Snare Drumming'' (1925). It was the standard grip for kit drummers in the first half of the twentieth century and remains popular. Matched grips became popular towards the middle of the twentieth century, threatening to displace the traditional grip for kit drumming. However the traditional grip has since made a comeback, and both types of grip are still used and promoted by leading drummers and teachers.


Popular brands

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Pro-Mark D'Addario () is a family-owned and operated American multinational company that specializes in musical instrument accessories, headquartered in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York. D'Addario is the world’s largest musical instrument access ...
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Vic Firth Everett Joseph "Vic" Firth (June 2, 1930 – July 26, 2015) was an American musician and the founder of Vic Firth Company (formerly Vic Firth, Inc.), a company that makes percussion sticks and mallets. He was also known for his association ...
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Vater Percussion Vater Percussion is an American manufacturing company based in Holbrook, Massachusetts. The company has always focused on percussion instruments, producing drum sticks, brushes and mallets. It was founded by Jack Adams, and later run by his two ...
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Regal Tip Regal Tip is one of the world's largest manufacturers of drum sticks and other percussion mallets. They produce a range of beaters, but are particularly noted as a manufacturer of premium steel brushes and nylon tipped drumsticks. In 2003, the c ...
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Tama Drums Tama Drums (from Japanese: (Kanji); (Kana)) is a brand of drums and hardware manufactured and marketed by Hoshino Gakki. The research and development of its products, along with production of its professional drum lines, is done in Seto, ...
* Collision Drumsticks *
Zildjian The Avedis Zildjian Company, simply known as Zildjian (), is a musical instrument manufacturer specializing in cymbals and other percussion instruments. Founded by the ethnic Armenian Zildjian family in the 17th-century Ottoman Empire, the com ...


See also

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Percussion mallet A percussion mallet or beater is an object used to strike or beat a percussion instrument to produce its sound. The term beater is slightly more general. A mallet is normally held in the hand while a beater may be a foot or mechanically operat ...


References

{{Percussion Human–machine interaction
Stick Stick, sticks or the stick may refer to: Thin elongated objects * Twig or branch * Walking stick, a device to facilitate balancing while walking * Shepherd's crook * Shillelagh * Swagger stick * Digging stick * Swizzle stick, used to stir drinks ...
Drumming Musical instrument parts and accessories Percussion instrument beaters