My latest rabbit hole: all about sticks. Really FINE sticks.

I’ve really fallen down the rabbit hole of boutique, custom and collectible drumsticks lately.

They’re often easier and cheaper to find than some practice pads, they take up less space, and some of them are flat-out gorgeous.

Here are a few of the latest to come my way:

1. Cooperman #10: Nick Petrella “General”.  A heftier version of the original Petrella concert stick, with a bigger tip and a more robust feel. I was fortunate to find these in both Persimmon and Hickory; today, Cooperman is taking a break from making persimmon sticks until they can source old-growth wood again.

I wouldn’t be disappointed about hickory, though. Cooperman know what they’re doing when they turn wood into some of THE nicest, best-balanced sticks I’ve ever played. 

The persimmon version are lighter, and more rigid. 

They feel great in concert passages where you don’t have time to change sticks and a lighter touch is needed.

The hickory sticks have become my new best friend.

Since getting them over a week ago, I’ve been chopping with them every single day on a variety of pads (which, being home bound due to Long Covid, is 95% of my playing right now). They feel lively, extremely well-balanced and very comfortable in my hands. 

I like them so much I plan to buy another set or two at least.

2. I’ve been having a lot of fun hanging out at the Boutique and Collectible Sticks FB group. Run mostly by symphonic and concert players with some overlap in the ancient Rudimental drum scene, these enthusiasts have invited me to broaden my horizons well beyond hickory and maple, and far beyond mass-produced sticks I’ve been playing for decades. Through them, I am learning about all kinds of woods and the kinds of sticks each is best for. And I’ve made a few really good friends as well.

My latest stick acquisition came courtesy of a friend who got several pairs of padauk sticks some years ago, from a young man still learning the craft. My friend sent along a pair to me so I could experience what playing with padauk sticks feels like. So far, they’re fascinating. I wouldn’t say I’m converted or anything, not with my hickory #10’s hogging a lot of my drumming time. But padauk is an interesting wood. The sticks are lighter than hickory, but possess almost no shock-absorbing qualities. So I have to make mental and physical adjustments to play cleanly with them. Once I figured this out, my diddles became smooth and light, almost ethereal. I know that some fife and drum corps sticks are being turned in padauk today, but I’m not sure my hands would enjoy playing on the march for an afternoon with them. I need to hang out with them more.

These sticks arrived with an incipient split in the wood on one of them. So I carefully lifted the split , applied some Elmer’s Glue-All underneath and in the cracks around, and set it to dry.

After it was thoroughly dry, I removed the wrap, sanded the excess glue off the surface, and applied a light coat of clear nail polish over the area to seal it.

When that had dried thoroughly, I gently tapped them on the dining room table so see if I could hear anything odd. I couldn’t. So I chopped on a rubber pad with them for a little while and really liked the subtleties my hands were receiving. 

They’re drop-dead gorgeous sticks.

Other woods on my list of Sticks To Try probably include rosewood, ebony, zebrawood, walnut  and various kinds of maple. If aim able to find sticks in those woods affordably, I’ll share my findings here.

Here’s video I made earlier this morning, some freestyling with the hickory Cooperman #10’s. 

They are absolutely delicious to play with, and just might have become my go-to stick for pad work and rudimental chopping in general.

Happy chopping!

Interview with Brian Kiethly and Russ Buchek of Ingrained Instruments

Based in the St. Louis area, Brian Keithly and Russ Buchek are crafting beautiful drum sticks in very small batches, from all sorts of domestic and exotic hardwoods, and selling them under the company name Ingrained Instruments. I had a chance to chat with them recently about their handcrafting adventures, the wood selection and stick making processes, and why they chose to enter the fray of high-end, hand-crafted drumsticks.

BH: What's your drumming story? How did you get into drumming and why?

BK: Russ and I have been best friends since HS, and it centered around music. We work well together, we can attack a project without having to speak, really.
I didn’t really get into drumming until I was around fifteen or so. My father played a little, and I got into messing with his drums. Close to graduation, my brother got into guitar and I hopped on kit.
I’ve also been into making and building things with my hands, for a long time.

BH: What's the story of Ingrained Instruments?

BK: You always want something you can’t seem to find out there already. Russ and I talked about this for a long time. A neighbor from down the street has been a woodworker for a long time had has a workshop in his garage. I asked him for guidance and eventually he wound up just turning a pair of sticks — he’s not a musician but they were really good right off the bat.

RB: Then it became of question of “How do WE do this?” and we just got more and more into it.
Eventually we got into this thing where we each got into some aspect of the process and got good at it.
RB: But it’s a very home grown, grass-roots kind of thing, where we learned as we went along.
BK: We’ve gotten into mixing old school woodworking with some automation, and each time we make an improvement it’s been huge — because the process has been and continues to be very organic.

BH: How do you select what woods you will make sticks from?

BK: I began with woods that were less common because I was really curious about them.  I had a martial arts fighting staff made from purple heart and wondered what it would be like to make sticks from it. I ask, “Will it be playable? Will it be workable on a lathe? How will it cure?"  We use the  Janka Hardness scale, which tells us what woods’ hardnesses are from softer to harder. The hard part with wood is that it can be so changeable, and so you have to figure out whether the actual wood you find may or may not be the best in that species.
RB: sometimes the wood you get will have burls or knots that can be hard to work with and still have the sticks come out straight.
BK: I want it all to be functional when it’s done.

BH: How does sustainability/scarcity factor into your choices?

RB: We’re trying to grow relationships with local companies that source domestic wood so we can have a more hands-on way of selecting woods. The more local, sustainably grown wood, the better.  
BK: There’s a few regular places online and one place locally which also import woods like cocobolo, ebony, and other woods not grown here. Those woods are getting harder to locate and far more expensive. Choosing those woods will get harder and harder and that will affect our choices and also our process of manufacture as we try to keep sourcing woods that will make great sticks. If we can get something whose source we trust (to be sustainable and/or imported legally) we’ll go with it.
There’s dozen different species of hickory and the fact that there are more domestic woods becoming available is encouraging for us.

BH: Has anyone questioned your wood choices for environmental reasons? How do you respond?

BK: We don’t use enough wood yet for anyone to really ask us about that, but things are changing all the time and we know that those questions are coming. We are looking at materials that will help us stay sustainable in new and interesting ways.
RB: Brian is very artistic and creative, and so when we started getting “off” strips of random pieces, which we can then layer and laminate — and utilize to make beautiful sticks. So we’re looking into doing more of that as well. We’re looking at both synthetic and natural non-wood sources like carbon fiber, bamboo and even hemp. We’re open to all kinds of experimenting to find our way to good playable sticks from materials that aren’t endangered and that’s exciting.
RB: Combining certain materials as we do also makes the stick "pop" visually.

BH: When making sticks one at a time, are there things that make it easier or harder to match weight and pitch? (My brother-in-law is also a woodworker, who specializes in repairing and restoring antique spinning wheels and making drop [hand] spindles, so I'd guess there's some overlap; but he doesn't have to worry quite as much about weight-matching as you do.) How much do pitch and weight matter in the sticks you sell?

BK: I’ve found that kit players tend to worry about pitch less than marching and concert players. A big part of it is starting off with wood that’s as clean as possible.
RB: If we weigh the planks before we start to work them, then it’s a little easier to match pairs up. but with wood there’s never an ironclad guarantee…

BH: But there’s still a high-wire excitement to this, isn’t there?
BK: If we get an unusual piece of wood that’s a one-of-a-kind, there’s no way to predict, except to try and minimize the margin of error at the start.

BH: Besides drumsticks, are there other musical items you're working on bringing out? (In as little or as much detail as you're comfortable with)

BK: This whole thing actually began around practice pads, but sticks took over quickly. We’ll probably get back to developing pads soon. We’ve also made guitar picks — Russ plays guitar — I’m experimenting right now with a tabletop music stand with a stick holder underneath.
RB: We’re both creative and musicians, so the thought process is going on all the time.

BH: Anything else you’d like to add?

RB: It’s been so interesting making a drumstick. I play guitar, and had never thought about sticks but I’ve learned a lot about this — from Brian, and also from Eric Harris and the folks at the Boutique Sticks group on Facebook — it’s been quite an education.
BK: The last three years of my life and building this into a business, has been some of the most rewarding time of my life. It’s been incredible to meet and learn from so many people around the world. It gives me hope.