2 Mallet Double Sticking Considerations

The semester is in full swing and have been continuing to teaching marimba fundamentals to my students at CSU, Long Beach. One concept I talked about was 2 mallet double sticking considerations, so I thought I would list my ideas here and see if anyone in our community had any additional thoughts.

2 Mallet Double Sticking Considerations:

1) When executing a double sticking, use your dominant hand whenever possible. We strive for evenness between the hands, but you are always going to have more control of your dominate hand.

2) Do your double sticking on the smallest interval. It is much easier to do a double on a second than an octave.

3) Double from the “black keys” to the “white keys”/naturals whenever possible. I have seen too many people get their mallet stuck when trying to double from the naturals to the accidentals.

4) When figuring out if you are going to use a double sticking, make sure that the double sound even and you are creating a good sound. An audience member should not know you are doing a double sticking. It needs to sounds as even as your alternate stickings.

5) There are going to be times when another sticking works better and that is ok. The main goal is to create music and musical phrases.

Am I forgetting anything? How do you teach your beginning marimba students about double sticking. Please leave your comments below.

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Originally posted on DrumChattr.com on September 6, 2011.

The photo in this post is courtesy of Yamaha Percussion Instruments.