The Drum Buzz

This is a guest post by Courtney Brandt;  author of the books The Line, A Fine Line, and Keeping In Line

If you would have told 14-year-old Courtney Brandt how much drum line would impact and ultimately change her life, she probably would have laughed in your face. Entering high school, I was an oboist (that’s right, a woodwind player). I knew I wanted to stay with my friends who were all joining the high school marching band. One problem. My particular instrument was not of the marching variety. Now, as you probably are not aware, most oboists choose to play flute and remain safely with their woodwind kindred. Not me. I heard the drum line on our 8th grade “field trip” to the marching section of the stands one night in the fall and somehow knew I was destined for the group. I could read notes better than a lot of 8th grade drummers, and after announcing my decision to join the Line, was plonked in the Pit. That day, I began a four-year relationship with the Brookwood High School percussion section and unknowingly set in motion the foundation for a series of novels which would introduce me to a number of amazing and talented people.

But freshman Courtney had no idea what she was in store for… She had no clue the friends, crushes, heartaches, victories, losses, highs, lows, discipline and lessons that drum line was going to provide. She just liked the sound of it all – the cadences, the rudiments, the loudness of everything.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

This is a guest post Omar Alvarado who runs the great drumming website – The Paradiddler

When we think of the drum kit, we usually think that all the drums are of the same brand and type.  This would be a good assumption!  A drummer wants to make sure that their drums have the same ‘timbre’ throughout, that even though the sizes differ, the drums tonally match regardless which size is struck.

A similar case can be made for speakers.  You could buy two different brands of speakers, similar in size, with identical specifications as far as watts per channel, impedance, sensitivity, etc.  But when you set them up as a left and right speaker in a stereo setting, they sound different.  Likewise if you mix and match brands of speakers in a surround sound environment, the sound difference can be quite pronounced between speakers.  This has a lot to do with the design of the drivers within the cabinet, the placement of the drivers within the cabinet, the construction quality of the drivers and cabinet, and the like.

The same can be said about drums.  If you have a 10” tom from brand A, say, Ludwig, and then another 10” tom from Tama, even if they have the same type of head and tuned similarly, they would tend to sound different.  Sometimes even if they’re made of the same material, such as maple or birch, they may sound different due to the different manufacturing process of each, thickness of the shell, etc.

So due to the above, for good reasons, drummers tend to stay with one brand of drums for the whole kit.  This doesn’t necessarily include specialty drums, however, such as mini timbales, roto toms, or Tama’s famous Octobans.  These have special sound properties (usually higher pitched) that give more options and melodic possibilities for drummers who want that flexibility.  However, there’s one particular drum in the set that, well, most drummers in the know would rather you ‘leave it alone’.

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Popularity: 70% [?]