Materials needed:

1. drum Sticks
2. drum pad or drum
3. fluorescent highlighter marker
4. black light
5. (*optional*) digital camera with long exposure capability (*optional*)

Setup:
The setup is very simple. Color the tips of your drum sticks with a bright fluorescent highlighter. Turn on your black light and your ready. Try and place the black light so that it's above you facing down. Make sure it's not in range of your sticks because it would be a mess if you shattered it. The effect is that you will be able to see exactly how the sticks are bouncing and the paths they are taking as you play. Make sure you set this up in a dark room so that the only light source is the black light itself. There are sticks available on the market that light up with batteries (http://store.drumbum.com/sku-STK-20.html). You can try those if you like, however, a black light and a highlighter may be already lying around the house and those don't require batteries.

By using this technique it becomes very easy to judge how high each stick is bouncing. This will allow you to balance your hands and clean up your technique. Use a mirror so that you can see different angles of your strokes. In the pictures below the sticks appear to be invisible except for the flourescent tips. This is because I'm using a long exposure and the shaft of the sticks are painted black and not reflecting any light back to the camera.

Flourescent Path Trace Analysis Technique

Description	Image
In this picture I am dribbling the stick on the practice pad about 5 inches off the pads surface. This is a side profile shot and shows how a clean consistant stroke should look under a 5 second long exposure from the digital camera. Notice how it produces a smooth arch as the fulcrum is at the left in the picture. A camera is not necessary for this technique to be beneficial. I had to use the camera so that I could show examples like this one.
This next picture shows me playing a single stroke roll with both sticks. The camera is on a tripod at the level of my belly facing outward toward the sticks. Notice how my right hand is sloppy and needs work. If you look closely you can see all the different places the stick is stopping before it goes back down towards the pad. It is also obvious that my right hand is bouncing a little higher than my left hand. The fact that it is not a smooth solid line means that I'm not bouncing the stick in the exact same spot everytime. So already I have discovered a few obvious ways in which I can improve my technique.
After just a little bit of practice I was able to clean up my technique a little. I balanced the height of the sticks so that they were a little more even. You can see that there is still room for improvement here. The goal with this technique is to acheive smooth solid arch lines. And this can only be accomplished by making sure the stick bounces in exactly the same spot every time it hits the drum or practice pad. It also must stop at the same spot in the air before its goes back down.
In this last picture I'm trying to lower my stick height so that I can gain speed. If you read my lesson on "How to get FAST and build your chops" than you know that lowering your stick rebound height has the potential to increase your drumming speed. The less distance the stick has to travel, the less energy you have to use to move the stick. This saved energy can be used both for endurance and speed. Looks like my left hand got a little sloppy.