If you have a good understanding about drum sizes, drumheads and drum tuning for different music styles and genres, and how they relate to each other, then you are well equipped to go on this journey. It’s valuable to take advice and suggestions from other drummers, websites, online videos and blogs like this, but only YOU can decide what your drums should sound like, and if you are not sure, keep experimenting, learning and investigating – it really is an endless journey, but a fun and rewarding one! The best approach is to continuously develop your knowledge and understanding, and make a very personal, informed choice about how you want your kit to sound. What this type of thinking confirms for us is that what’s right for one person can be horribly wrong for someone else, and that’s ok, in fact, that’s one of the really beautiful things about drums. But what does this mean? These are just words that don’t really help anyone practically without some details added, and more interestingly, what happens if we use a JAZZ kit with ROCK drumheads and setup with a tuning somewhere in between? Hmm, that could be interesting… or maybe it would be a disaster! No surprise, but also, a ‘jazz’ drummer will play ‘jazz’ drums with ‘jazz’ drumheads and ‘jazz’ tunings. This might sound a bit simplistic, but a ‘rock’ drummer would generally play a ‘rock’ kit with ‘rock’ drumheads and with a ‘rock’ tuning. The tuning of each drum in the drum kit.The size of the individual drums in the drum kit.So how do we break down all the options into an approach that drummers can use to experiment and understand, to find their own personal sound and setup for their own personal drum kit? A good approach is to consider that three physical things about the drum kit are very influential in relation to the style and genre of the music a drummer plays: As we’ve mentioned a number of times already, the endless possibilities for personalising a drum kit and it’s sound is both a blessing and a curse, because your knowledge and experience needs to evolve every time you want to try something new – and drummers should really never stop learning or investigating new options and approaches. But some approaches suit certain styles better than others, for example jazz drummers generally tend to tune a kit to higher frequencies than rock drummers. And, as we know, there are hundreds of different ways to tune and perfect the sound of a drum kit. While it’s essential to develop and perfect your own drumming style, and be flexible to play different styles too, it’s just as important to be able to setup and tune your kit relevant to these specialisms or styles too. Maybe you play a big eight piece drum kit in a classic rock band and a tiny two piece kit in a cocktail club covers outfit it’s certainly a valuable skill to be able to play different styles and genres, not only to broaden your ability, but also to widen your opportunities for paid work as a drummer! You might play jazz style drums in the morning and rock drums at night, or maybe you play in two bands and need two different drum kits to suit the style and genre of each one. What’s more, with a single drum kit, physically setup to suit the owner’s needs, there are still thousands of choices on how the kit is played and how it is tuned for the type of performance. Some drummers have more cymbals than drums, some want a super strong and comfy drum seat, some have two floor toms, some have two kick pedals, some have toms mounted on the kick drum, some have their toms mounted on a cymbal stand, the choices are endless! And even if two drummers have exactly the same kit and equipment, their setup will differ based on the way they play, the length of their arms, how high they like the seat, whether they want the dark thin crash on the left or right hand side. Every drummer’s kit has been meticulously setup to enable the perfect performance for that one person – it’s an incredibly personal thing. Taking a seat behind a fully-loaded drum kit brings a moment of joy, power, and excitement to all drummers, and even non-drummers too! Just watch someone’s face light up as you pass them the drumsticks and let them experience the thrill of sitting behind your kit for the very first time.
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