Setting Up And Tuning Your Drums Guide For The Youngest Drummers Out There Part Two

By: Ronald Black

Lets examine a drum, if you look closely at the rim, you'll notice that the rim has holes in it. The rods, long pieces of metal with threads on one end and another end that your drum key fits onto, fit through the hole and down the outside of the drum and into the threaded hole at the top of the lug. The lugs are the pieces attached to the outside of the shell of each drum. The drum key is used to tighten or loosen the rods on the drum to change the pitch. It's best to get a general pitch that'somewhere in the middle of the range of pitches that the particular drum you're working on is capable of. To do this, use your drum key to loosen all the rods on both the top and bottom heads until they are as loose as they can be.

This will give you a starting point from which to tune the drum.If your drums came with the heads not on them, put the heads on the drums and tighten the rods into the lugs just enough so that they are threaded into the lug, but not so tight that there's any pressure. Then pick any rod and begin to tighten it just enough so that you start to feel some resistance. Then, go to the rod across the drumhead from the one that you've just tightened, and tighten that one as close as you can to the same amount of pressure as the first one. Pick another rod and do the same thing that you did to the first two. Then go to the rod opposite of that one, and do the same. It's very important that you always go to the rod that's across from the one you're working on when tuning up your drums.

If you tightened up all the rods on one side of the drum first, before going to the opposite side, your head will end up sitting on the drum like a seesaw, with one side of the head tightened down and the other side up too far away from the lugs to be tuned properly. If you follow this procedure with all the rods on both the bottom and top heads of the drum, you're ready to begin tuning. Choose any rod and tighten it up just enough so that any wrinkles that you might see near the area of the drumhead that you're working on smooth out.

Once those wrinkles smooth out, repeat the procedure with the opposite rod. As you continue this procedure for all the rods on the drum, try to pay attention to how much you're tightening down on each lug. ideally, you want to apply as close to the same amount of pressure to each and every rod as you can. If you do this to all the rods on both the top and bottom of the drum, your drum will then have a pitch or note that you can work with. It takes a little bit of experimentation to get the perfect pitch for each drum. If you have three toms in your kit, you'll notice that they are all different sizes. if you tune each tom to its ideal note, they will all naturally fall in a descending order of pitch. In other words, they'll go from higher to lower pitch according to their sizes.

Setting Up And Tuning Your Drums Guide For The Youngest Drummers Out There Part One
Setting Up And Tuning Your Drums Guide For The Youngest Drummers Out There Part Three
Setting Up And Tuning Your Drums Guide For The Youngest Drummers Out There Part Two