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The Anatomy of a Drumstick

An overview of some acoustical and physical properties of (wooden) drumsticks.
The influence of its weight on the produced sound.
Various properties of the wood and the influence of the shape of the tip on the sound when the stick is used to play on the cymbals.

Introduction.

All the observations and remarks in this article are based on my own observations and experiments during some 30 years of professional percussion playing and teaching in Classical, Jazz and Pop music.
This article does not pretend to be scientific of nature.

The wood

I estimate that 90% of the drumsticks is made of wood and that 90% of those wooden sticks are made of American Hickory. In my own collection of hundreds of pairs of drumsticks, only a minority is made of Oak, Maple, Birch, Beech or even more exotic types of wood like Ebony or Rosewood. This is not without reason of course: American Hickory is precisely the type of wood that combines strength and weight in the right proportions and it has good shock absorbing properties.

Length and Weight

Almost all sticks are longer than 385mm (15.1") and shorter than 415mm (16.3"), and that's it! Using longer sticks when your arms are short or the other way round, won't help much. Making longer sticks is of no use at all because you don't hold the stick at the very end (well, almost nobody does) but at a point where the weight of the part of the stick before that point, is more or less equal to weight of the part behind that point. This point is called the Fulcrum Point.

This is very well demonstrated by a pair of 1150mm (43") long sticks that Pro-Mark once made as a gimmick. You have to hold them somewhere halfway, which leaves about 400mm (16") of wood pointing towards you!

Almost no stick weighs less than 40 grams (1.4 ounce) and almost no stick weighs more than 70 grams (2.5 ounce).
This is if course very much related to the length, thickness and type of wood. Latin Percussion once made a series of drumsticks called Dynafibe, that were made of hickory that had a greater density (by artificial compression techniques) than regular hickory, and hence the stick was heavier. Personally I have used this sticks to a great deal and liked them very much. They had a great sound.
 

The Parts of the Drumstick

The Shape of the stick

The usual shape of the stick is with a taper from Butt-end to Shoulder but some variations exist. Notably the stick with the shaft having greater diameter than the butt.
A very special design can be found in Tom Gauger's stick:

The stick on the left has a normal design, the stick on the right is Tom Gauger's model #17.
The abrupt change give the stick a special feel and balance because the fulcrum point is now closer to the butt end.

The Shape of the tip

1. Round shape (Ball, Apple)
2. Oval shape (Pear)
3. Triangle shape (Pyramid)

This image shows each base-shape.

Almost all tips fall into one of those three base-shapes.
The shape of the tip is of major importance on the sound of the stick, when played on cymbals.
 

The influence of the weight on the sound

The weight of a stick is of course dependent on its size and the density of the wood. Given that, acoustical laws dictate that the heavier the stick (up to some obvious limit which is controlled by the size of the instrument), the fuller the sound you get. By full I mean that the whole sound spectrum from low to high frequency comes out.
This is something that best can be heard by heaving someone else play your drum, while you are some 20 feet away. No miking! Just the drum, the sticks and the player. Of course the drum itself is of (major) importance, but given a good drum, the sound when played fortissimo with light sticks, is terrible, no matter how hard you hit! Playing softly with heavier sticks also gives a much richer and defined sound.
Give it a try. Of course when you are playing on a miked drum, then the most important factor is your sound-engineer!!
The sound of a heavy stick on a cymbal has also much more lower frequencies than a lighter stick. This is something that is not always wanted, but can be controlled to a certain degree by the shape and position of the tip.

The influence of the shape of the tip on the sound

Acoustical laws tell us that the smaller the point of contact the more higher frequencies are produced. The same is true for the density of the stick. The harder the wood (more dense), the higher the frequencies in the sound heard.
The ideal stick (in my opinion) is heavy, made of wood with a high density and the tip shape should be triangular: The weight gives me body, and the density - together with the Triangular tip- give me a clear cymbal sound.

The Triangular tip (picture left). Here we have the smallest point of contact, hence the more higher frequencies come out and give a distinct and clear sound.
Because all the forces act on a very small point, stick wear is high! This can be avoided (somewhat) by selecting wood types with a high density.
 

Now we have changed the position of the stick in such a way that the side of the triangle is in full contact with the cymbal. The sound changes from clear to dull! (picture right)
 

The stick with the ball-type of head has always the same area of contact. Changing its position doesn't have much effect. (picture left)
 

picture right: The Oval tip has a larger point of contact than the model above and hence a darker sound (when made of the same wood). Compared to the triangular tip its sound is darker than the triangular tip in the first position, but lighter than that stick in its second (flat) position.

Pair Matching

Good factories try to match their sticks into equal pairs. Equal of weight that is. But because factors like temperature and humidity have great influence on wood, it's always a good idea to try to match the pairs yourself before buying. Sticks are also suspect to warping and this can be checked by rolling them on a glass (or other flat) surface.

The Numbers on the Sticks

Most manufacturers put some kind of code on their sticks like: 5A, 7b, 6a or 3B, but because the manufacturers failed to come up with a system that would give us some real information about their sticks, the meaning of those numbers is without any use for comparing sticks of different manufacturers.
However, within the numbering of a given company you'll might find some system and you can be assured that a given number won't change its meaning.
Apart from numbers you'll see lots of other descriptions like "John Doe Jazz Model", "Dolly Parton Swing Model", "Band", "General", "Bolero", "Steve Gadd" and a thousand others, which mean just as much as nothing!
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Go out to find the stick(s) you like best and buy them by the dozen, and if you're a real drum banger, buy them by the ton!