Sight alignment. Sight picture. Natural point of aim. Same as shooting a rifle in the Marines. When I close my eyes, then open them, my target (the drums) are in a position that my body naturally wants to play. I can close my eyes and play consistently in the center of my drums. Same with cymbals. If you're twisting your body or arms, you can't play consistently in the same spots. Heck, I could, or anyone should be able to, play an entire set blindfolded. Close your eyes, play naturally, then move each drum to that position. I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned. I believe that this is the very first thing to do. Then go back and watch the video again. And an excellent video it is, as usual. I always hit the like button in the first three seconds! Always consistent quality lessons!
I started playing DCI drum corps with large drum sticks and ultra high tuned snare drums with thick heads when I was younger. Later I learned from playing timpani with French grip understanding how to pull the sound out of the drum and how different sized mallets and materials striking areas affected the instrument. I later moved onto timbales and timbalitos as my principal instrument after many years on the trap set.
I'm a "flowery" drummer, lol. My ensembles are free improv/modern classical. I lean more towards low volume musical phrasing than rigid grooves. With improvisation I have no idea what sounds I'm going to hear from others, so knowing the timbres and resonances all of the kit comes in handy. Volume dynamics in technique hugely affect the tonal dynamics as well. It is really a never ending instrument in this type of setting.
I'm glad you touched on the point that sometimes the dissonance of an out of tune snare can sometimes work to an advantage of not getting lost in a mix of other instruments. I've experienced the perfect in-tune snare or tom that disappears when another band mate is playing a particular note in a song and suddenly the drums kinda get masked.
Glad you mentioned using the strike zones to your advantage. While I'm not a huge Bohnam fan, John used every zone to color the fills he used. 'Black dog' is a great example of this, he sounds like he's playing a much larger kit by doing one drum fill and dragging the strike zones all over the drum, especially the snare. Like him or not, his technique exemplifies your point.
I love that you did this one! My first drum was a snare drum that my amazingly understanding parents gave me for Christmas when I was 11 years old. It was the 60s, and I was trying to play along with Ringo, Keith, Mitch, and Ginger. I learned really quickly that I could get different sounds by hitting different parts of the head. I got really good at throwing off the snares to get a tom sound, and then manipulating the sound to (with the help of a little imagination) mimic what the big guys were doing. Since then, I've just taken for granted that I have lots of choices available to me in the course of playing, and it's just been a natural part of my technique. I especially like doing ghost notes out near the edge. Thanks for another great presentation.
The thing I love the most about sounds like a drum is it continually bucks the thoughts that drummers / percussionists are hard hitting meat heads, we have to consider 4 limb independence, timing changes, grooves, watching for and giving cues, creating spaces and as I like to say “ we lay down the road the rest of the band travels on”, also take into account that sometimes we are forced to play on a back line kit that were not familiar with and are expected to bring our “A” game, would a guitarist be cool with someone else’s guitar, amp and pedal board?I don’t think so,IMHO the drummer is the thinking mans musician, nothing against the guitarist, bassist,keys and vocals but just remember, the drum IS the oldest known instrument, I am more that’s just a drummer, I am the heartbeat!!! Ty Cody, you give us all a little more respect.
big fan of beats where one snare is on the backbeat and one is syncopated, and you make the syncopated one hit closer to the edge and the backbeat one dead center. sounds fantastic every time.
I always find it a bit strange when someone's drum heads have marks from only hitting dead center and no where else. Personally I find dead center too dry, just off center has more pleasant overtones to my ear. I hit my drums all over the head depending on what I want to hear. As you say, it's about being consistent where you hit.
Yes, when done intentionally for the music this is perfectly fine, the real beauty of an acoustic drum is that there are multiple sounds available there.
This is what studio engineers and producers would call "Studio professional" When you can hit the same area of the drum at the same force time after time. Even when you have to do 20 or 30 takes on a song, they want it as consistant as possible take after take. Live you can play around and experiment as much as you want. Great content as always. Thanks
I like hitting off-centre for ghost notes, which can produce a very good distinction between dynamics, which means the main note doesn't need to be played so hard - or can sound like there's more drums in the mix
Thx guys! As informative as ever! I unconsciously play around with striking position, let’s make that conscious! That being said. There something that’s been on mind. Long story short, in my mind from a satin finish, to lacquered to wrapped, a drum should become more and more muffled. All other things constant off course! I couldn’t find anything on this topic, but think it would interest you guys as well! 😊 wouldn’t make that a nice video topic?! 😇
Fantastic topic.And it’s incredibly practical. I use C.S. Black dot heads,This helps me immensely with,Zeroing in on the center.I use that space mostly,But if I choose the outer edge,I can play that sound as well.
Well, this validated a lot of my experience. Some songs I'm looking for that tight dead center sound of my Ludvig 14"x5.5" BM, but other times that feels wrong for the song. Just by moving the strike zone by an inch out from the center, I start to get those livelier overtones that allow the sound to breath.
One day you should make a video about bass drum technique as well. It often gets overlooked but letting it rebound and digging into it also makes a big difference.
I play a Supraphonic, tuned higher for funk. I like having a wide range of sounds available depending on where I hit it, as-is I play a variation on traditional grip so I view my left arm as something like the tone arm on a record player, and where I move it determines what sort of sound I'll get out of the snare, among other things.
Useful as always. Will try to incorporate some of my relative neophyte sloppiness/inconsistent strike zone placement to be more strategic, to get more out of the individual drums.
“Really bad” might have been an exaggeration but it was far from being in tune with itself and that’s exacerbated when your strike zone is inconsistent. Part of the demonstration was showing how you can make a poorly tuned drum sound great simply through consistent, intentional technique. It sounds like we pulled that one off with some success here!
I get a lot of compliments on my snare drum sound. I mostly play rimshots just off centre because there are pleasant overtones; directly in the centre is too dry for my tastes.
I remember this moment, when I went from random hits to hitting the drum with more intent. Suddenly it felt like i owned more expensive drums. To this I would add the optimal energy input that each drum best responds to for the song, genre etc. These relatively small changes in your playing, even if they take a little time, make huge difference to how your drums sound - they’ll sound more expensive - for free!
I play with strike zones quite a lot. In my one band we have a sort of reggae vibe in a lot of songs so sometimes i play quite close to the edge to give it a higher kind of sound in the reggae parts and the weird overtones do filter themselves out in the stage mix as you said. What I did have a problem with before was my snare wires. It buzzed monumentaly from the kick in a studio, sounded like someone grinding their gears into reverse, like on trucks. I think I need to replace my snare wires (I use the 42 stand big boy ones on a 6.5 inch deep maple FreeFloater). What I also noticed is that the wires wre making different noises at different strike zone and was worse towards the edge. I ended up using a spare snare for the session. I had to use a strap on the snare wires where before I used string. I personally hate straps as the wires to me seem to level themselves out but the nylon strap makes it so much harder to set the wires up. Maybe I should move back to the standard 20 snare wire count and DEFINITELY go back to the strings if I can find them again. Question: How much do the differing snare wires react in these types of situations or demos? That would be interesting ... Do 42 strand snare wires give any benefit?
I always wondered about Chad Sextons signature snare sound on 311 records and from what I’ve seen, he references playing the snare off center as part of his trademark sound.
My parents hated that one drum stick would chip in the center from rim shots, they didn't understand. They thought doing rim shots was bad accuracy, my right hand stick always thinned out to a pencil at the end and tip lol. To the point they were unplayable with the weight of the sticks balance eventually
