What's the question -- which we think is better, or which we actually play?

It's which grip style you use, sorry about the vagueness.

Matched is only for set, in my opinion.

And mallets and all that auxiliary stuff if you want to get specific.

I still use traditional on set, but I mainly play jazz so thats not uncommon.

I would say even past mallets and auxiliary matched is a safe bet. Any snare drumming outside of marching is generally better to do matched because playing matched grip will give you a more consistent tone quality. Same goes for concert toms or any other sort of battery percussion you will play in a non-marching setting. However, I have seen Tom Gauger of the Boston Symphony Orchestra play bass drum in traditional grip for some sort of muffling or tone production purpose.

My 2 Cents.

"Traditional" grip is a solution to a problem that no longer exists (i.e. playing on a drum that is set off to the left side and at a tilt). Matched grip is ergonomically superior in every way.

There are three reasons I can see why traditional is still in widespread use:

1. Resistance to change. "This is how *trained* drummers play!"

2. Groups still use slings instead of carriers for various reasons - usually tradition, a desire to be "retro", or historical authenticity.

3. It looks kinda cool.

honestly... i dont think its possible to look intimidating if you use matched grip on a snare.
whenever i see a line using matched grip, i just think they look goofy.
also there can be some elbow room problems with lines that use matched. with traditional your right elbow is extended and your left hangs to your side. matched both elbows are extended, so you cant get as close to your other snares

i use traditional on set whenever i play set, but thats cause i have difficulty with matched and of course im a jazz kind of guy.

The reason i use Traditional grip is because I'm a big fan of Tradition. almost any corps you see play traditional and i think they look and sound great. the only reason that your tone quality would be any different with traditional vs. matched is if you are doing it wrong.

traditional all the way

Truth of the matter is for me, I know Matched is superior for many mechanical reasons and consitancy as well as many other things that make it entirely beter than traditional. Traditional is beter than matched IMO for set because as Murray Gusseck said it produces a lighter tone on the drums which can be used for soft Jazz type music and what not. This is a main reason as to why traditional isn't as good for marching as mached because, it mechanically isnt made to produce a big loud sound off the snare, and it actually takes more effort to produce similar sounds with the hands because traditional is mainly for softer noises.

IMO matched is the superior way, but it just feels funny in my hands as well as looks funny unless if im playing tenors or something. Trad all the way for me until common sense takes over in most drumlines and that matcbed grip becomes superior. Just look at old SCV Fred Sanford lines which own and have great sound matched grip. Not to mention they were pretty damned clean!

i like traditional for set because it offers different phrasing options. it sounds a lot different hitting a cymbal with an odd angle traditional grip than straight on with matched.
i like traditional for the marching snare just because it offers a much 'cleaner' and more 'intimidating' visual package compared to matched
but for every other percussion application (yes, even concert snare) matched grip just makes physical sense.
i try to practice matched just as much as i practice traditional just for the sake of being a percussionist instead of a drummer. if you know what i mean

I like traditional purely because it looks better on a line. Whenever I see someone playing matched on a snare (unless it's one of those tunes where they play kit style stuff with cymbals holding for them), I just think it looks really bad. It makes me think the person is playing it because their left hand technique sucks (even though that's not always true. Didn't SCV go matched one season?). So yeah, traditional's the way to go on snare, or for me, at least.

I'm proficient at both grips. I started with matched, and learned traditional on my own. I like playing traditional only because of the visual and just because it's the staple of marching bands. Matched grip, for me, offers me more of a balance of the right and left hands chop-wise.

my drumline uses matched but i like traditional for the looks... I can play both, but matched is what im better at because i've always used it, but in starting to get better at traditional because, every line I see, except my school's, uses traditional.

I prefer traditional simply because it's something that snares have that's unique to them. There's not really much more than that I can say.

There's no reason to play traditional anymore. Granted, this is coming from a tenor/set player, who's left hand is really effing bad at traditional, but as someone said before, traditional is the solution to a problem that doesn't exist anymore.

As far as being unique, that seems sort of silly to me. Every single instrument is unque. Snares are the main voice of the drumline, if you will. I think that's pretty unique.

And to the "looking silly" comments, I dunno, I've seen some pretty dope lines use matched. I know I talk about these guys almost every time I post, but Darmouth High has been using matched grip pretty much forever, or I dunno how long, and they're one of the best high school lines in the country. You don't hear anyone trashing them.

My final opinion? Play what sounds best and cleanest.

I use matched grip. I grew up as a drumset player, i was trained that way for 3 years before i ever stepped into the marching world.

Our drumline program sticks with matched grip so that year after year, members can be switched to any instrument without going through the proccess of learning different technique wise. You can't make trad a universal thing in a battery, but matched is, so thats why we go with it.

Matched grip is the superior grip. The only reason I practice traditional is so that I can play snare in drum corps. for everything else, matched is the way to go.

Laziness seems the be the unspoken reason why so many people are resistant to change.

even though matched is a "balanced grip", traditional grip is better on snare because it was developed for the snare. If you look at the history of the snare, traditional was made to compensate for the tilted playing angle where matched would be uncomfortable.

Ummm...my snare is level. How 'bout yours?

In fact you have to get special attachments or adjust your drum carrier attachments (on Pearl and Yamaha) to sit cockeyed to have them tilted -- which is adjusting the instrument to the grip -- unless you use a sling instead of a carrier.

Thus, I'll continue to happily use (and encourage the use of) matched grip thank-you-very-much.

When I first transfered from one high school to another, I was forced to switch from matched to traditional. But ever since that switch, I've been playing trad. I'll practice matched every once in a while but it just doesn't feel 'right'.
I'm not really saying that trad is better, just saying that's what I've become used to.

I play both, but I am more just learning traditional. I have discovered that both grips actually give a different sound. Playing jazz on the set, for example, with a matched grip just doesn't seem to create that much needed feel and tone that is signature of the style. Traditional seems to give me a lighter touch and sound that is not possible with matched.

i believe traditional looks better.
when i see lines playing matched, i just go "why?"

When I play marching snare at all, I use Traditional because that's just the way I learned it. For some odd reason my drumline instructor has our snare line doing matched grip however this year, as opposed to last year. I think the traditional grip looks better though.

somebody had a very good point on another topic about playing matched. were supposed to be even with both hands and you can achieve that easier playing matched. and why play traditional when most drums arent tilted? because its bad asss thats why.

to me it doesnt matter that the drums arent tilted anymore and obviously it doesnt matter to top drum corps.....the way to fix this problem is to simply drop the left arm a bit and both arms LOOK parallel to the drum......then traditional is used and it looks badass.....i play trad. btw

My drumline has a word we use for lines who play match, but i cant say it on this forum. Its more or less the word wussy, but i think you guys can figure out what it is. To me match stick is for junior high kids. Thats just my opinion.

If all the drum corps played matched, everyone would say matched is better and looks cooler.

True story.

I'm willing to bet that if in 2009 any world class drum corps used matched grip and won, many drumlines across the nation would switch to using matched. If this happened the next year then even more would switch. If this process happened three years in a row then I'm willing to bet money that more than three fourths of all the drumlines who are aware of DCI will be playing matched.

logistically, there is no need for traditional grip with non-tilted snare drums. Traditional grip was only created as a solution for playing the sling-held drums of the Revolutionary War times. The reason so many people still use it is because it is what it is, tradition.