With regards to the gruber technique, I would suggest watching Dave's video in conjunction with Steve Smith's video, as they both cover the gruber stuff, but with a slightly different approach.
One comment I have with Dave's video is his discussion of the 'triangle' for use with the fulcrum. He himself admits that this is his own derivation of the technique - he took the original technique and made an approach that works for him.
My advice to anyone trying to learn the gruber method would be to do the same thing - learn it the 'correct' way, and then adapt it to your style (rather than starting off with Weckle's method - you may end up there, but do what works for you, not Dave).
The most instructive comment that I found was on Steve Smith's video. He said to take the second finger (middle finger), curl it under and let the stick rest on there. Ignore the first finger - it just happens to be on your hand.
To be honest, I don't actually know what happens as you begin to play faster. Does the second finger remain motionless, and all finger action come from the last two fingers? Or does the middle finger 'help' with the rebound? Like I said - I don't know, but when I do play faster, it just happens and it's relaxed, so I'm not fussed.
With regards to Dave's playing in the video, and whether or not the gruber technique is applicable to playing fast, I would say that Weckle is a really bad example to look to for the applicability of the gruber technique.
I've always held the opinion that Weckle (given his mastery of the instrument) has had pretty bad technique. Great chops, but bad technique. It seems like he practiced so much that he was able to get his muscles to do all those things, even though it weren't the most natural way to play. I think it's hard for him to shed years of poor technique and suddenly transform into a rebound god. That said, his technique now is much better than it was before :-).
Rather than looking to Weckle for inspiration on using rebound to play fast, I would suggest looking to Buddy. Watch some of his vids - he plays fast, and is always relaxed, and the sticks are always rebounding.
That said, technique is not the be all and end all - Dave was still a monster player even when I considered him to have 'poor technique'. And my favourite drummer of all time (Steve Gadd) doesn't have 'great technique'.
Also, for more information on hand technique, I would also recommend Jim Chappin's video. His presentation is very disjointed and all over the place, but man does that guy have good hands.
Anyway, just my humble 2 cents. And please realise that I'm speaking about technique relatively - when I said Weckle had bad technique, it was in comparison to the top 5% of drummers all time. I'm sure Weckle's hands were better than mine when he was 7 years old ;-)



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