4 Mallet Technique

-First, grab a mallet with your pinky and ring finger. Allow about half an inch of the back of the mallet to stick out from your fingers. This mallet is called the “outside mallet”. (See first image) -Next, shove a mallet’s shaft directly into the center of your palm. Make sure the very bottom of the mallet shaft is actually in contact with the center of your palm. This is called the “inside mallet.” (See 2nd image) -Wrap your middle finger around the inside mallet, as pictured above. (See 2nd image) -Place your index finger and thumb on the inside mallet to form the “T-Grip”, as pictured above.

If you’ve done everything right, look down and you’ll see something like this.

Angle of Your Hand

-Without mallets in your hand, stick your hand out like you are gonna give someone a handshake. (See first picture above). Next, wrap your fingers in as if you were holding mallets. (See 2nd picture above). Lastly, turn your hand very, very slightly over so that the knuckle of your index finger goes slightly higher than your thumbnail. (See third picture). This is the position that your hand should be in when you hold mallets:

If you find that the mallet heads are not level when your hand is at this angle, that means the bottom of your inside mallet is contacting your palm in the wrong spot.

Here are the most common mistakes with hand angles: -Turning the hand over too much so that the back of the hand is almost parallel with the

ground. To fix this, you need to first make sure the very bottom of the mallet shaft is connected to your palm, as opposed to the side of the mallet shaft.

-Having the hand turned too far up so that the highest point is your thumbnail; this will prevent you from achieving relaxed double vertical strokes especially at fast tempos. The way to fix it is to move the base of the mallet shaft slightly lower in the palm. Avoid the bottom of the mallet shaft contacting the base of the thumb. Reference the picture above for the correct spot in the palm.

Pressure vs. Squeezing There is some amount of pressure required of the fingers to maintain the technique and avoid slippage of the mallets. The finger that applies the most pressure is the middle finger, which wraps around and supports your inside mallet. The thumb and index finger, at least at normal tempi, provide only very slight pressure. The back 2 fingers also provide only very slight pressure, as the angle of your hand should naturally prevent the mallet from drooping. However, if you find that your outside mallets tend to droop, you may be applying too little pressure. At faster tempos, more pressure is required to maintain the position of the mallets in your hand. The first finger to apply more pressure is always the middle finger, followed by the thumb and index if necessary. The goal is always to find the minimum amount of pressure required to achieve what is being asked of you; applying too much pressure (or squeezing) can result in tendonitis or carpal tunnel.

Double Vertical Strokes The double vertical stroke requires the player to move all mallets at the same time. 1. Establishing good playing zones

Place your mallets on the bars and check that your mallet heads are in a straight line over the centers of the bars. I often call this the “shish kabob”, because your mallet heads are in a straight line just like pieces of a meat on a shish kabob. In order to do this, the angle created by your forearm and outside mallet will be around 170 degrees.

2. Establishing home base

After establishing good zones, just turn your wrists back to bring the mallets up 5 to 6 inches. When doing this, DON’T change your shish kabob! Some people change the angle of their wrists/arms when they lift the mallets. Also, make sure you lift all your mallets to the same height; otherwise you will get a crooked home base, like these:

Avoid crooked home bases! In the first image, my mallets 2 and 3 are much lower than 1 and 4. I call this as the “smiley face home base.” In the next image, my mallets 2 and 3 are much higher than 1 and 4. I call this the “frowny face home base.” If you find that you have a crooked home base, check that your inside mallets are pointing directly into the center of your palm and that you are not squeezing with the thumb and index finger. If that is correct, merely adjust the angle of your wrists such that your mallets are all set up at the same height. Finally, here’s the stoic home base:

←Muuuuch better.

2. Hitting the board. From home base, turn your wrists directly DOWN so that all mallets contact the instrument at the same time. See the two pictures below; the top picture is my mallets at home base, and the bottom picture is my mallets contacting the bar during a double vertical stroke. We should always hit the bars at high velocity to achieve articulation, no matter the height, unless we define it otherwise for a specific moment in our show. The speed at which we rebound is determined by the note value. For our philosophy on rebound speed, check our the explanation in ⅞ Octaves.

Single Independent Strokes A single independent stroke is the act of moving a mallet independently of all other mallets. For example, playing with just mallet 1 without it affecting mallet 2. To do this, we need to understand how to rotate our hand around an axis so that only one mallet moves down, instead of both mallets moving down like we do for double vertical strokes. The above information regarding playing zones and homebase STILL APPLIES! So we’ll skip steps 1 and 2, and go right to step 3: 3. Axis and rotation

The axis from which you will rotate is always the center of your palm. That means all the meat of your hand rotates around one fixed point in the center of your palm. The direction of the rotation is shown above with arrows. -For mallets 2 and 3, the direction is approximate with the direction your thumb is pointing. Imagine that you are pushing the mallet down with the thumb, and that is the direction that your rotation should be. (But don’t ACTUALLY push down with the thumb!) -For mallets 1 and 4, the line is approximate with the metacarpal (google it!) of your index finger. -If this is all done correctly, you should be able to use just 1 mallet without it affecting the height of your other mallets. Hence why it’s a single “independent” stroke!

3. Getting higher

There comes a point where turning our wrists further back and engaging the same rotation as described above results in the mallet traveling a curved path that doesn’t result in the mallet hitting the board. If I try to apply the same principles when my mallets are at 12 inches (like in the picture above), I can’t even hit the board. So, to play single independents at this height requires somewhat of a hybrid technique. We will combine our double vertical stroke with our single independent rotation. So our wrists will turn down at high velocity AND rotate.

Notice how this affects the height of my mallet 4. Since what I am doing involved some double vertical motion in my right hand, mallet 4 also comes down a few inches. This is okay! Note that we will still rebound both mallets back up to home base.