Brushes are an important tool to have in your stick bag when you play the drums. They’re not required for every style of music, but it’s good to own a pair and know how to use them for those moments when you will need them.
They feel very different from drumsticks, and the technique used to play with them is also vastly different. In this guide, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about drum brushes. We’ll explain how and when to use them, and we’ll answer a few questions that you may be asking about them.
To play drums with brushes in a simple step-by-step process, you could follow these guidelines:
When you use brushes, you can hold them in the same way that you hold your drumsticks. If you use matched grip for your sticks, then you’ll be most comfortable using matched grip for the brushes. If you use traditional grip for your sticks, then traditional grip with your brushes will work better.
Some drummers claim that you should always use traditional grip with brushes, but that’s not true. Just use whatever grip is most comfortable for you.
If you’ve never used traditional grip, you don’t want to be learning that as well as how to use brushes at the same time.
When you strike the drums with brushes, you can choose to let them rebound off the heads, or you can dig the thistles into the heads. When you let them rebound, you’ll get resonating tones. When you dig them in, you’ll get a choked sound.
The biggest technique to learn when it comes to drum brushes is the swishing technique. This is when you take one of the brushes and drag it around the head of the snare drum to create a constant swishing sound.
It works best when you do it in circles. While you do that, you can play rhythms with your other hand on the snare and other drums. Jazz drummers do this to play swing grooves when using brushes.
There are a few different swish rhythms that you can play, though. After learning the continuous circle movement, you can learn to do the right to left movement. Then, you can do the two taps and then a swipe movement.
You have to get comfortable at doing all of these while playing improvised rhythms with your free hand.
The biggest reason for using brushes on the drums is when using sticks on the drums will be too loud for certain songs. Brushes produce much softera sounds from the drums and cymbals compared to sticks.
Some songs also sound better when you use brushes, especially ones that have slow tempos. The drummers that use brushes the most are jazz drummers, but there are other styles where they can be used as well.
For example, a drummer playing in a small restaurant can use brushes to play the whole set with their band, as using sticks may make the drums sound too loud. The drummer wouldn’t need to do any swishing movements in that case.
They could just play the same way that they would with regular drumsticks, and everything would be much softer.
With that being said, brushes aren’t the perfect solution to every setting where volume is an issue. They don’t produce as much attack from the drums, and you often need that attack. In that case, rute sticks would be a better pick. Those are thin sticks that have been bundled together.
Brushes and jazz drumming go hand-in-hand. Every jazz drummer needs to learn how to use brushes as there are so many tunes that require them.
While brushes are mostly used for soft ballads in jazz, there are also plenty upbeat tunes where the original drum part has brushes being used. A lot of Latin jazz songs also require brushes.
Compared to any other musical style, jazz music is where brushes are used the most, and that’s why jazz drummers use them. They just work incredibly well with the style.
For example, the jazz swing rhythm translates very well through brushes when you do the swishing motion on the snare drum and play the typical ride pattern with your other hand on the snare drum.
Yes, you can easily play cymbals with brushes. However, you’re not going to get the same aggressive attack from hitting them as you would with regular drumsticks. You’ll get an emptier sound with less sustain.
A good way of getting more articulate sounds from the cymbals with brushes is by turning them over and hitting the cymbal with the back of the metal rod that pulls the brushes in and out. Drummers that use brushes do this all the time.
You could also hit the edge of the cymbals with the rubber body of the brushes to get tones that are slightly louder and more aggressive.
Yes. Not all drum brushes are designed the same. They have the same basic design, but you’ll find differences in the thickness of the thistles, the weight of the handles, and the amount of stretch that the thistles have.
Most brushes have metal wires, but you’ll also find a few options with plastic wires. These ones are typically a bit louder when they hit the drums and cymbals.
Some drummers take years to develop proficient brush technique on the drums. If you’re a jazz drummer, it’s a good idea to get as good as you can with them. If you play other styles, you should just get a basic understanding of how brushes work on the drums.
They’re one types of stick that you should have in your stick bag. You never know when you may need them, and they work fantastically when you’re not able to play very loudly on the kit.
If you want to hear brushes being used in top-tier recordings, check out a few classic jazz albums. The brush work you’ll hear on those is always inspiring.
Drum Teacher
Brett Clur has a Drum Performance Diploma from Trinity College London has been playing drums for over 20 years. He is passionate about advanced concepts and uses his years of experience to teach his students about them. While he is a full-time drum teacher, he is also working on growing a YouTube channel where shares his insights. You can see him playing there, or on Instagram where he posts daily videos.
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