Keith's drum stick grip

["Paul Stevens" <stevens@motmot.engr.sgi.com>]

I've been enjoying the other critiques of Keith's drumming style
and techniques.  I'm also a drummer (seems to be a lot of them
on this list).

I've also noticed from watching videos that Keith has a very
unorthodox way of holding his sticks.  The textbook approach
for "matched grip" (as opposed to "rudimental grip") is to
let both sticks pivot by holding them tightly between thumb
and index finger.  The remaining 3 fingers are used to guide
the sticks and most of the energy comes from your wrist.

Keith appears to have a stiffer grip where he wraps all of
his fingers around the stick and then most of the energy is
coming from movement in the elbows.  This also causes him to
play with his shoulders up and elbows out, where a more traditional
drummer has his shoulders down and elbows in.

I'm probably not explaining this very well.  But if anyone else
knows what I'm saying I'd be interested to see if you've seen
it as well.

Oh and another post talked about Keith being overwhelmed by the
monster kit that he started using around the Quad tours.  And someone
else mentioned that he didn't really get a handle on using that
kit until the 75/76 tours.   I missed seeing him do Quad but I
will say that he sure seemed to have it mastered in that 75/76
time frame; blew me right off of the floor of Winterland!

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
   Paul Stevens                               Silicon Graphics
   stevens@engr.sgi.com                       Mountain View, CA