Brushes are drumsticks that end in a fan of thin metal wires or, in more recent designs, nylon or plastic bristles. They are much quieter than wooden sticks. Drummers use them in two main ways: tapping, for light, crisp hits, and sweeping, dragging the bristles across the snare drum head to create a continuous swish that sounds almost like a sustained texture. Many brushes can be retracted into the handle to change the spread of the fan.
Brushes are associated above all with jazz ballads and small groups, though they also appear in R&B, Latin and rock; Ed Thigpen’s book The Sound of Brushes remains a standard method. Their soft attack fits jazz lo-fi perfectly: a brushed snare sweep, sampled or programmed, gives a beat a gentle shuffle without disturbing concentration.