Hot answers tagged drums
15
Your description at the end is pretty close to the default (assuming right handed) for a rock kit, which is the most commonly used setup. There are other standard kit setups such as Jazz Kits see @Eric K's answer for a description of a Jazz kit.
So for a "standard" rock kit you'd have:
Snare between your legs usually just above knee height on your left
Hi ...
11
Subdivide the 8 beats in unorthodox ways. For example: Coldplay's "Clocks" subdivides 8 beats into a 3-3-2 rhythm. Not exactly groundbreaking, but a bit different from the usual. You can take that idea and run wild with it. Here are some ideas:
Re-arrange the more familiar 3-3-2 subdivision into 3-2-3, which is a bit more unusual.
3-5. Play a beat in ...
11
Actually, the fact that you've analyzed your playing to the point where you can describe where you're going wrong means you're halfway there, so good job so far.
Some additional practice suggestions:
Try feeling macrobeats: instead of listening for a pulse on every beat, listen for every two beats, or every full measure--thus de-emphasizing the snare:beat ...
10
Your first kit should not break the bank, nor should it be highly specialized. It is simply a kit you will use to gain skill in drumming, and also to illustrate what you personally do and don't want in a drum kit. Different woods, skins, and cymbal construction will all contribute subtle tonal differences, all at the same (high) pricepoint. Making all of ...
9
Will approach this from the standpoint of drums, but the same advice applies to amps and other backline equipment.
Communication
The best way to handle this would be for the stage manager to get in touch with the owner of the drum kit and clear adjustments ahead of time. If you know who these people are ahead of time, some emails and phone calls can go a ...
9
These are known as stickings. Use only one row of stickings at a time.
Depending on context, a repeat sign as well as a set of alternate stickings could mean either to play one sticking and then switch to the other on the second time, or to choose a sticking but use the same sticking throughout. Your no. 8 example, for instance offers a basic alternating ...
8
If you can't hear the click because it falls right underneath your strokes, that's called "burying the click", and it's generally a good thing. If your stroke is consistently just before the click, that's referred to as playing "ahead of the beat"; If your stroke is just after the click, it's called playing "behind the beat". Both are valid techniques to ...
8
Professional electronic drum kits are made by many musical instrument manufacturers including Roland, Yamaha, Alesis, ddrum, Simmons, and even the Zildjian cymbal company. The link in the previous sentence goes to a list of kits sold at Guitar Center.
These are all "silent" in that they make no sound acoustically (however you can hear the sound of your drum ...
7
As with mastering any technique, you need to practice ... a lot.
That said, I would also suggest you try changing the angle of the snare drum a little bit. Try a few different angles to see if you can find one that results in hitting the perfect rimshot more reliably. For instance, if you are consistently hitting only the rim, then it may help to ...
7
Listen! Listen to the music what it needs and listen to other drummers playing the same styles and you'll learn a lot.
For a rock band, you usually want to keep a strong backbeat on 2 and 4, so you don't have much choice on the snare drum except for adding some ghost notes here and there. Variations on the bass drum and on the hi-hat pattern are possible of ...
7
Yes, there are electronic drums.
There will be a tapping sound when playing. This will likely not disturb your neighbors, but your room mate might find it disturbing.
I believe that playing with brushes is problematic, but I'm not updated on the technical advancements of electronic drums.
7
All of the instruments can define the beat, but in order the most important (in a typical 4 piece) are - drums, bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar.
You can define a laid back beat just with the drums - if everyone else plays as normal, but you swing your beats, you will get a much more fluid feel to a piece. To do this well requires the band to work well ...
7
It really depends on the style of music. If you're playing military or orchestral music, with lots of rolls, you'll probably find a wooden stick rebounds better from the snare drum, making it easier to play.
On the other hand, because wood has a grain, wooden tips give you a slightly different sound depending on the rotation of the stick around its long ...
6
In addition to good advice already given, if you want to plan your drum part and be very rigorous about it:
drums can be used for emphasis, introduction, warning. Just before the melody and the lyrics are played and singed louder, or accelerating, etc. the percussion can prepare the listener and warn him something is going to happen.
drums can be used as a ...
6
Anyone else have any ideas/methods for increasing ambidexterity for stick control?
I don't really see what your problem with having one hand stronger than the other is. There is never a requirement to have both hands equally good when playing; all you need is for both of them to be good enough for what they need to do. If the dominant hand just happens ...
6
I would consider above all the rhythm and timing, how it "feels" with the rest of the instruments. As a drummer, I find it very difficult to take a recording away and attempt to come up with a specific rhythm. I find it much easier to play along with the band and see where I can fit in and add to the overall feeling of the song.
I think playing what sounds ...
6
When you're learning, the main choice you make is, do you want to become "good enough" (where good enough is defined by you, for whatever situation you're in), or do you want to become as good as you can? Either choice is fine. Just realize that your drum teacher is being paid to make you as good as you can be; unsurprisingly, learning general music theory ...
6
Traditional Grip Pros:
Very common in Marching Percussion
Looks 'cooler' (subjective)
Easy to play on a tilted drum, harder to play on a level drum.
Easier to play very soft as you are pulling the stick down instead of pushing it.
Traditional Grip Cons:
Harder to keep both of your Right and Left hand sounding the same.
Slightly more difficult to ...
6
Yes, drilling the end of each crack will stop it from spreading.
As far as bent cymbals go, simply hammering it back will cause additional tonal change (an possibly cause a crack, or section to chip off). It is possible to repair the shape, but the sound will never be the same.
If you have access to vice-grip or a table vice, I would recommend the ...
6
General Midi specifies a mapping.
Roland's GS standard adds to it as does Yamaha's XG standard.
Your exact keyboard (and possibly drum preset itself) may vary.
see http://pianocheetah.com/midi/drum.html and wikipedia:
5
Try using a watch. That's what a lot of orchestra conductors do.
It's fairly easy to train yourself to find a beat by just looking at a watch for a couple seconds.
Since a watch will give you 60bpm, subdivide the tick to get 30bpm increments or subdivide twice to get 15bpm increments.
Once you get the hang of it, you don't need a metronome.
5
Dave Weckl has a great video for tuning drums
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH_RoUQyv5A&feature=player_embedded
In response to your harmonic problem.
I'v always found it handy to look at the top and bottom heads of the drum as providing 2 different functions. Tune the top head, so that its tight enough to get a nice rebound from
your stick and try to ...
5
My experience in the UK and europe is that it is fairly standard for bands to share a backline, in terms of a drum kit the term "breakables" gets used quite frequently, this refers to
snare
bass pedal
cymbals
As in each band brings their own breakables and there will be a basic drum kit (bass drum, at least one rack tom, one floor tom, hi hat and 2-3 ...
5
I found some really good information on this website about weightlifting and the singing voice. Some of the responses in this article are very helpful to what you are asking about.
Taking full deep breaths is very important while you are singing. However it is more natural to take shallow breaths, especially while exerting oneself physically. Try ...
5
Swing is generally somewhere between e. s and e e depending on the tempo, style, and drummer. You could suggest instead of playing [q e]3 triplets that he move to a 16th note upbeat, or move ahead to somewhere between the triplet and the straight 8th.
Really, though, he should just listen to some recordings of drummers that do this sort of swing style. You ...
5
Much more useful than metronome tracks would be a metronome app; if you have an iPod touch or iPhone (or Android) I highly recommend Tempo by Frozen Ape software as it has a noticeably more accurate timing engine than many competitors.
When riding the bus to school you have free movement of all four of your limbs, so there's really quite a lot you could do ...
5
This site here has quite a few examples of rhythms, whether they be from well-known songs or just something to groove along to.
http://www.onlinedrummer.com/beats.php
I know I have something that was from Vic Firth which outlined about 40 or so basic rhythms from rock to jazz to latin:
Suggested by Rene Marcelo:
Try: Drumset Playalong Tracks
The one I ...
5
There are a few different levels here. One of the things you can practice are "Grooves", for example, those included with the Vic Firth Groove Essentials packages. That will give you some starting places based on the style of the music, and it's a lot easier to learn from written-out grooves than to decode every little thing by ear.
You'll also need to ...
5
Obviously, headphones are the very first thing to recommend if you aren't already using them. A good pair of noise-cancelling headphones works both ways; you can be thumpin' it at 95dB and nobody but you will hear it.
The sound produced by you hitting a rubber pad with a drumstick is a dull thunk, typically quieter than an ordinary conversation. If you have ...
5
Well, I can't give you any two dimensional Fourier Analysis here but if I put my practical engineer hat on I can give a rough idea. A drum itself is a passive device in other words you can't extract energy from it without giving more into it. Therefore, as Dr.Mayhem's comment hints the harder you hit, the more energy you put into.
Now the moment you hit ...
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