Bass Tone

To create the bass tone, strike the center of your drum with the palm of your hand. Like the open tone, you want your hand to bounce off the head as soon as you make contact with it so that the head can vibrate freely. One trick here is to hit the drum on a slight angle, brushing past the head as your palm hits it. Doing so helps get your hand out of the way of the head's vibration. For most drums, this position is also the most natural way to hit the bass tone because you have to move your hand at an angle toward the drum to get the center of the head.

Some drums are conducive to creating bass tones than others. Generally, goblet shaped drums, such as the African djembe or Middle Eastern doumbek, make a more pronounced bass sound than a barrel-shaped drum, such as the conga.