Oh another thing, as far as the whole fingers being stretched out or put together...

I know a lot of lines just...don't define it...except for SCV and Mystique, a lot of the time its something that doesn't get talked about.

The East Coast/West Coast thing has always bothered me. There are tons of styles out there. The main thing is that the people on the line look the same and the quality of the crashes are good.

One isn't right over any other. I brought my version of the Cadets style to the Crossmen and they adjusted it to fit themselves and came out with some fantastic cymbal lines. Other people have done some great work, like Gomez, Kelly Howell, John Brehm, etc.

I don't agree with Insomniac's comment regarding how fingers are used. We used finger technique at Cadets and Crossmen. It was mainly used more for chokes.

Pharrell's comments on the hand grip being closed on the East Coast technique is not true either. I taught the lines so that the hand would be flat on the pad so the cymbals would ring naturally. We had to play that way during open crashes because the Cadets horn line was insanely loud and we had to balance with their volume.

The main thing is to look at as many lines as you can and learn from them. Take what you want from those lines and create your own style. That is what my video is all about.

I marched Magic in 2005 (for clarifications sake, not with the cymbal line but in the hornline, rather) and the cymbaline's technique was directly taken from Spirit's 04 book. Multiple member's of the line and staff came from the Spirit '04 line (and staff). That might answer a question I saw in one of the first posts on the topic.