What size drum sticks a beginner needs

What the numbers and letters actually mean

Drum stick models are written as a number and a letter — 7A, 5A, 5B — and the convention is old enough that the original logic has partly worn away. What survives is useful: within a single maker’s line, the number tracks the stick’s weight class and the letter tracks the intended application. In practice, on the American Classic line, 7A is the thinnest and lightest, 5A sits in the middle, and 5B is thicker and heavier than 5A.

That is the whole decision. Everything else on a stick — the taper, the tip shape, the wood — matters to a player who already has a developed stroke, and almost nothing to a beginner. For a first pair, pick a diameter that suits the hand holding it.

Why 5A is the default, and when to break it

5A is the reference size in American drumming. It is what drum method books assume, what a teacher reaches for, and what a school percussion section mostly holds. That matters more than it sounds like it should, because instruction about grip, rebound and stroke height is implicitly calibrated to a stick of roughly that weight. A student working on a much lighter or heavier stick is being taught rebound that their equipment does not produce.

There is one good reason to break the default: hand size. For a small child — think a second or third grader on a practice pad — a 5A can be enough weight that the hand clamps around it to control it, and a clamped grip is the single hardest habit to unlearn later. A 7A is the same wood and the same taper in a thinner shaft, so the transition up to 5A later is a small change rather than a relearning.

Wood tip or nylon tip

The tip is the other choice on the listing, and it is genuinely a choice rather than a quality tier. A wooden tip gives a warmer, darker cymbal sound and is what concert and jazz settings want. It also chips, and a beginner chips tips faster than anyone, because mis-hits land on the rim and the hoop.

A nylon tip does not chip and gives a brighter, more defined cymbal attack. Two situations make it the better buy: a student who has already destroyed a pair of wooden tips, and a student playing an electronic kit, where the brighter attack reads more clearly on cymbal pads. Nylon tips can work loose and come off eventually, which is the trade. Electronic kits are covered on our apartment drumming page.

Buy spares, because sticks are a consumable

Sticks break. They break at the shoulder from rim shots, they chip at the tip, and they develop a flat spot that changes the rebound. For a student practising regularly, treat a pair as something that lasts months rather than years, and keep a spare pair in the bag — because a broken stick on a Wednesday otherwise costs a week of practice.

This is why the 5A is also sold as a four-pair value pack, which is the sensible way to buy a consumable once you know the size is right. Start with a single pair to confirm the size suits the player, then buy the multi-pack.

Sticks are not mallets, and a band student needs both

One thing worth separating before you order, because it catches out almost every band parent. A school percussionist’s part is usually split between snare drum and mallet percussion, and those take different implements: drum sticks for the snare and the pad, and keyboard mallets — a plastic, rubber or brass head on a thin shaft — for the bells. Sticks will not play a bell kit properly and mallets will not play a snare part.

A first-year bell kit normally ships with both, which is why the kit is what a supply list asks for rather than a shopping list of parts. What changes in the second year is that the parts diversify, and the student starts needing hard mallets and timpani mallets as well — which is the point at which a mallet pack rather than another pair of sticks is the purchase. The specification to look at on a kit is the note count, and that is covered on our bell kit page.

Sticks are only useful with something to hit

The cheapest practical setup for a new drummer is a pair of sticks and a practice pad, which is also the quietest and the one a household in an apartment can live with. Pads are compared on our practice pad page, and the books that make a pad useful are on our drum method books page. If a full kit is the plan, start at our beginner drum set page. And if the student is joining a school band rather than a rock band, the first instrument is usually a bell kit, not a drum set — that is the bell kit page.