The Complete Idiot's Guide to
Playing Drums
2nd Edition

Chapter 5
Heads, Shells, and Lugs:
Tuning and Caring for Your Drums

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When you take your new drumset home from the store, unpack it, and set it up, those drums sound awesome. But after you've been playing them for a while--especially if you've been using them on gigs--those wonderful new drums start to sound a little... well, a little less new.

The longer you have your drums, the more you have to take care of them. You need to clean them, repair things that break, change heads from time to time, and do whatever else is necessary to keep them in tune. This is standard operating procedure for any drummer, and this chapter shows you what you have to do to keep your not-quite-new drums sounding brand new.

Time for a Cleaning: Keeping Your Set in Tip-Top Condition

Basic drum care is really as simple as keeping your drums, cymbals, and stands clean and in good working condition. (The latter also involves replacing worn-out drum heads, which is discussed later in this chapter.) If you make a habit out of cleaning your set regularly, it won't be much of a bother--and it will save you a lot of grief later.

Cleaning Your Drums

Cleaning your toms, bass drum, and snare drum should be a regular affair--just like dusting your house. (You do dust your house, don't you?)
Take a clean, soft cloth--as soft as you can find--and carefully rub down all your shells, lugs, and rims. Try to wipe out any accumulated dust from that little area where the head meets the rim; use a small brush to clean out the crack, if necessary.

If your kit has a lacquer finish, you can use a high-quality, non-abrasive, non-wax furniture polish to put a little shine on the shells. You don't want to do this on non-wood shells, or on shells with a plastic wrap finish, though. If you have a wrapped covering, you can use Windex to polish up the shells--but make sure you don't leave any streaks.

For a more thorough cleaning, you'll want to disassemble each of your drums. This means not only removing the heads, but also removing the lugs and any other mounted hardware. When you're down to the naked shells, go through your normal cleaning routine--only now you can work on any gunk that was wedged around or behind the lugs.

While you have your drums disassembled, take the opportunity to clean up your lugs and other hardware. Use a high-quality chrome-cleaning compound--like that found in most automotive supply stores--to put a shine on all your chrome parts.

Cleaning Your Cymbals

Basic cymbal cleaning is a lot like basic drum cleaning. Just use a soft, clean cloth to wipe down your cymbals once a week, or whenever you're tearing down from a gig.

You should also perform a more strenuous cleaning and polishing on a less-frequent basis. Once a month or so, you should head over to your local drum shop and buy a bottle of Brite Stuff or one of the many other cymbal cleaners. (If you polish your cymbals less frequently, you may need to use Comet or some other commercial cleanser to scrape through the built-up gunk--although these chemicals may be too abrasive and cause damage to some cymbals.)

Before you polish a cymbal, spread out some old newspapers or towels, that so you don't get old cymbal gunk on your clean carpet or wood floor. (Trust me on this one; I still have "cymbal spots" in my spare bedroom from a particularly intense and ill-prepared cleaning session several years ago.) Now apply the cymbal cleaner per the label's instructions, and use a soft, clean cloth--and a lot of elbow grease--to wipe off the cleaner and apply a nice shine. Heed the directions to clean only a small area at a time; if you tackle too large an area, the cleaner may dry on the cymbal before you get a chance to wipe it off.

Once you've finished a cymbal, grab a clean cloth and go over the cymbal one more time. Use a lot of pressure to get rid of any remaining residue, and you'll end up with one shiny, great-looking cymbal.

Cleaning Your Stands and Pedals

You clean your stands and pedals the same way you clean the hardware attached to your drum shells. For casual cleaning, wipe them down with a soft, clean cloth. For more serious cleaning, use a commercial chrome cleaner--and disassemble each stand before you start. You can also apply a thin coat of Vaseline to the surface of your stands, let it sit for a day or two, and then buff it off; this will help prevent pitting and rusting.

Your bass drum and hi-hat pedals need a little extra preventive maintenance. All moving parts should be periodically oiled, per the manufacturers' instructions, to keep things properly lubricated. Make sure that you wipe off excess oil when you're done, to keep the oil from getting on your drums or heads.

Make Like a Boy Scout--and Be Prepared!

It's always a good idea to carry a few spare parts when you're at a gig or on the road--just in case. I like to carry extra cymbal felts, sleeves, and washers, since it's so easy to loose these during set up or tear down.

In addition, if you have a strap-driven bass drum pedal, carry an extra strap with you. I learned this lesson when I was in junior high school, taking drum lessons from a senior named Roger Fouch, who was the drummer in the high school's jazz band. I was watching Roger play with the band on a Sunday -afternoon concert, and right in the middle of "Lucretia MacEvil," I saw a look of surprise on his face--and noticed a total absence of bass drum sound. The strap on Roger's bass drum pedal had snapped, leaving him without the use of his bass drum for the last half of the concert; if he'd had a spare strap, he could have quickly made a replacement and been back and kicking for the next song.

Of course, you can't prepare for all contingencies. When I was in college, my original Fibes tom-tom mount broke while I was playing a friend's recital, sending my my two small toms tumbling forward in the middle of a song. I had to play the last two tunes with my toms resting precariously on top of my bass drum--and then head out the next day to get a new tom mount installed on my kit. I don't know of any drummers who carry an extra tom holder with them on gigs, though, so a catastrophe like this probably can't be avoided.

You can, however, carry extra heads for each of your drums, as well as a spare set of snares. Pros sometimes carry extra snare drums, so that they (or their drum tech) can switch drums in and out if a snare head breaks.

The bottom line: Be prepared. If something can break, it probably will--and in the middle of a tune!

Perfect Pitch Not Required: Tuning Your Drums

Every musical instrument needs to be kept in tune. Guitarists tune their guitars, pianists tune their pianos (well, they hire piano tuners to this, but you get the point ...), and drummers tune their drums. You tune your drums because the heads settle down onto the shells over time, or because every time you whack a drum it's head loosens slightly, or because you want to get a different sound out of a drum. Drummers who play loud and hard may need to retune their kit several times during a gig; even if you have a lighter touch, you may need to touch up the tuning every few weeks.

Tuning a drum is an involved process, because it involves several different elements:

• Batter (top) head tension
• Resonant (bottom) head tension
• Relationship between the tension of the top and bottom heads
• Type of head
• Type of shell
• Muffling of a head or shell's natural ring

When you tune a head, you're tuning for pitch (higher or lower), for tone (deep or bright), for projection, and for ring (resonant or muffled). To get the right combination of qualities, you have to work with both heads and, in some cases, some form of muffling.

Choosing the Right Heads

Every drum has at least one head, and probably two. (You can have single-headed toms and bass drums--which produce a very dry, punchy sound--like the "pudding" drum sounds that were popular back in the mid-1970s.) The head you hit is called the batter head; the head you don't hit is called the resonant head. (You can also call them top and bottom heads--unless you play your drums while standing upside down!)

The drum head is where the sound of the drum starts. Which type of head you choose--and how you tune the head--is as important to the sound as the drum's shell and overall construction. In fact, some experts say that 85% of the sound produced by a drum comes from the heads--so you can see where the wrong head choice can really muck up your sound!

Drum heads today are typically made of Mylar, a type of plastic. Back in the early days of drumming, heads were made of calfskin--but skin heads are notoriously susceptible to changes in humidity, and require constant retuning. Plastic heads are more constant in tone, and more tolerant of today's typical playing conditions.

The big head companies today are Aquarian, Evans, and Remo. Most of these companies make heads in several different weights and types:

You can also choose between coated and uncoated heads. Coated heads have a rough texture that muffles a drum's overtones, to a small degree, and produces a slightly "rounder" sound. You want a coated head on your snare drum if you ever play with brushes; for your toms, which you don't play with brushes, you probably want the unmuffled sound of uncoated heads.

Changing Heads

If a head is way out of tune--and can't be put back into tune, no matter how hard you try--then you probably need to replace that head. In addition, heads go "dead" over time, and need to be replaced on a regular basis, no matter how hard you hit it.

How often should you change your heads? It all depends on how hard and how often you play--and how tight you crank up the head tensioning. Here are some signs that you may need to change a head:

• The coating begins to wear off a coated head.
• You see one or more dents in a head.
• The head, when removed from the drum, appears caved in or stretched out.
• You can't tune the drum properly--especially noticeable with low-pitched tuning.
• The head buzzes when hit.
• The head has a hole in it. (Duh!)

That said, the following table offers some general head-changing guidelines for hard-working drummers; if you're not playing several hours every day, you can wait longer between head changes. 

When you have to change a head, follow these steps:

1. Remove the old head.
2. With the old head removed, use this opportunity to clean the inside of your drum. Pay particular attention to dirt and dust around the edge of the shell.
3. Position the new head on the shell, and press down slightly to fit it on the shell.
4. Place the rim on the head.
5. Screw each tension rod into place, finger- tight.
6. With your drum key, tighten each tension rod a full turn.
7. "Seat" the head on the shell by pressing hard around the rim. You may hear some pops and crackles; this is natural as the head adjusts itself to the bearing edge of your drum.
8. Finish tuning the drum, as discussed later in this chapter.

Because the head will continue to form-fit itself to the shell, you may need to retune a new head several hours after you've changed it.

How to Tune a Wild Drum

The general approach to tuning a drum is the same across your entire set, whether you're tuning a tom, a bass drum, or a snare drum. (Snare drums do have some unique tuning considerations, which are discussed later in this chapter.)

The top (batter) head controls attack and ring, while the bottom head controls resonance, sustain, overtones, and timbre. This means that tuning the bottom head properly is every bit as important as tuning the top head.

When you tune a drum, you use a drum key to adjust the tension rods that hold the rim to the shell. These tension rods screw into the lugs on the outside of the shell; the more you tighten them, the higher the pitch of the head becomes.

There is a set order in which you should adjust your tension rods--don't go from one to next in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion! You need to apply tension to the drum head evenly, which means going back and forth across the head.

Start by tightening the tension rod at position one; don't tighten it all the way, just a couple of turns. (This is because you want keep an even tension across the drum head, which you can't do if one lug is super-tight and the others are super-loose.) Now move to position two (on the opposite side of the head) and give that tension rod the same number of turns; do the same with the remaining lugs, in order.

Now you're back at position one. Tighten this rod a little tighter, and then move around the lugs again, applying a little extra tension each time around. Keep this up until the head is free of wrinkles and a very low tone is produced when you hit the head.

Continue tightening the rods (in order), a little bit at a time--no more than a quarter turn each time. From time to time, you should tap the head next to each tension rod and tighten or loosen each rod so that the tones are all the same all around the drum. (When drummers say that a drum "is in tune with itself," they mean that the head is equally tensioned all the way around.)

Repeat this procedure until the head has the desired pitch. Give the head another set of taps around the edges to make sure the tuning is even, and then you're done--with that head. If you use double- headed drums, you'll need to repeat this procedure with the bottom head.

When you're tuning the bottom head, you not only have to tune it to itself, but you also have to tune it relative to the top head. You can tune each head to the same pitch, you can tune the bottom head lower than the top, or you can tune the bottom head higher than the top. There's no one way to do this; you'll need to experiment with different tunings on each of your drums to find the one that you like best.

Once you have one drum in tune, you get to tune the other drums in your kit. You'll want to tune the drums to each other, so that the smaller drums have a higher pitch than the larger ones. You get to choose the difference in pitch between the drums; when you're tuning toms, consider tuning them either a third or a fourth apart.

Know that there is no right or wrong way to tune your drums; every drummer does it slightly differently. In general, however, if you tune a drum too tight, the pitch will sound unnaturally high and the tone will be "choked." If you tune a drum too low, the tone will start to disappear completely, and you'll produce a "flappy" sound. You'll need to be somewhere in the "sweet spot" for each drum, and then use your own ears from there.

How to Muffle a Ringy Drum

Drums ring. They just do. Between the resonance of the shell and the resonance of each of the heads, you get a sound that goes on and on.
Some drummers like their drums to ring. Other drummers want a dryer sound with less ring. If you want to reduce the ring of a drum, you have to muffle the drum.

One way to reduce drum ring is to loosen the batter head a quarter to a half turn. Another way is to either increase or decrease the pitch of the bottom head so that it's different from the pitch of the top head. Either of these approaches produces a slightly dryer, funkier sound.

If you still have unwanted ring--or don't like the tone of these types of heads--then it's time to turn to some external muffling techniques, including these:

• Use a commercial muffling device, like those that look like Mylar "O" rings. (You can also make your own muffling rings by cutting up an old drumhead.) Some of these come with multiple rings of different sizes; you can layer multiple rings on top of each other to increase or decrease the muffling effect.
• Put a strip of duct tape on your batter head. You can experiment with different lengths of tape, and with different positions for the tape on your head. You can even layer multiple strips for a heavier muffle.
• Tape an tissue or napkin to the rim of your drum, and let it lay loose on your batter head. Again, experiment with different thicknesses and positions.
• For toms and snares, try putting a hunk of "moon gel" on the head. The bigger the piece of gel, the more the sound is muffled.
• An "old school" muffling technique is to cut a long strip of felt and mount it underneath the batter head on a tom or snare, or across the front bass drum head. A lot of today's drummers dismiss felt muffling as dated, and feel that the felt strip interferes with the seating of the head to the drum's bearing edge, making the drum slightly more difficult to tune. I don't necessarily agree with this, although I no longer use felt strips myself. Note, however, that some drum manufacturers (such as Fibes) still use felt strips to muffle their bass drums -- you be the judge!
• Here's one specifically for bass drums. Try putting a pillow inside the drum. You can control the amount of muffling by adjusting how much of the pillow touches the front or rear heads; the less contact, the less muffling. (Some companies produce dedicated bass drum mufflers that look like odd-shaped pillows; these work in the same fashion.)
• Also for bass drums: Cut a hole in your head. (Your front head, that is.) The hole eliminates the drum's natural resonance and creates a punchier sound with a more defined attack. And the bigger the hole, the less resonance you'll hear.

These are only some of the ways to muffle a drum. I can remember my first drum teacher muffling a very ringy Ludwig snare drum by placing his wallet on the head--and it worked! (You need to have the right combination of cash and credit cards in the wallet, however ...)

That said, my preferred method of controlling drum ring is by head choice. If you have just a little ring to get rid of, switch from a clear to a coated head. If the ring's a bit more bothersome, switch from single-ply to double-ply. Even more ring can be controlled by switching to a self-muffled head, like a Remo Pinstripe or (for snare drums) an Evans Genera HD. And if you like your drums as dry as James Bond's martinis, there's nothing more muffled than an Evans Hydraulic.

The important thing to remember is that too much muffling is bad. If you take all the ring out of a drum, you may as well be whacking on a table top. It's the ring that makes a drum sound like a drum--a little ring is a good thing!

Tuning Your Snare

Tuning a snare drum is different from tuning a tom or a bass drum in that you have one extra element to consider--the metal snares that stretch across the bottom of the drum. Not only do you have to deal with tuning the snares, but you also have to work a little extra magic with the bottom head--which, on a snare drum, is called the "snare head."

Most of the time you want to tune the snare head tighter than the batter head. This will produce a crisp sound and minimize unwanted buzz from the snares.

You can also adjust the drum's crispness by tune-tuning the tension knob on the snare strainer, which loosens or tightens the metal snares themselves. Loosen the tension knob too much, and the snares will start to rattle; tighten it too much, and the snares start to choke up. In between these two extremes is a wide tonal range, from "fat" to "crisp."

Here are some tips for achieving specific snare drum sounds:

• For a fat and "wet" sound, tune the snare head as low as possible, while leaving the batter head fairly tight.
• For a controlled and cutting crack, tune the snare head two or three tones higher than the batter head.
• For a highly resonant, almost ringy, sound, tune the snare and batter heads almost identical in pitch, or tune the snare head just slightly higher than the batter head.

After you get your snare drum perfectly tuned, chances are good that you'll run into a problem unique to snare drums--sympathetic vibrations. This is the buzz that is generated when your snares vibrate when a particular pitch is played on one of your other drums, or by another instrument. There are several things you can try to get rid of this buzz, including these:

• Readjust the tuning of your snares or your snare head. (The problem with this method is that it interferes with the overall tuning scheme of your kit.)
• Loosen slightly the four tension rods on either side of the snares on your snare head.
• Position a playing card or a tissue or shoelace between the snares and the snare head. (While this may get rid of the buzz, it will probably also muffle the snares to an undesirable degree.)

My experience is that you'll probably always have some degree of sympathetic snare buzz--but in a live situation, it will probably get lost in the overall mix. It's more of a problem in a studio situation, and that's where some of the extreme solutions (like sticking something between the snares and the snare head) might be necessary.

Tuning a Tom

While the general guidelines for drum tuning apply to both small and large toms, there are some tom-specific tuning guidelines to note:

• For a fatter sound, tune the resonant head lower than the batter head.
• For a more resonant or ringy sound, tune the batter and resonant heads almost identical in pitch.
• To reduce ring, tune the resonant head slightly higher than the batter head.
• To pull as much volume as possible out of a two-ply or hydraulic batter head, use a thin single-ply resonant head on the bottom of the drum.
• To reduce undue overtones and sustain while maintaining an aggressive attack, combine a single-ply batter head with a muffled resonant head.
• For a slightly darker (yet still resonant) tom sound, switch to ebony heads on both sides of the drum.
• For an extremely wet, thuddy sound, use a hydraulic batter heads.

Tuning Your Bass Drum

The combination of heads you use on your bass drum will dramatically affect the drum's sound. The following table details the sound produced by various head combinations:

In addition, there are a number of tricks you can use to achieve particular bass drum sounds. Here are some things to note:

• A higher-pitched tuning produces an overall punchier sound.
• For an even punchier sound, tune the front head higher than the batter head.
• For a fat sound, tune the front head as low as it will go without becoming "flappy."
• Reduce overtones by placing a blanket or pillow inside the drum--or by using a felt strip across the batter head.
• Cut a small hole in your front head to reduce ring; make sure the hole is off-center and 8 inches or less in diameter.
• Produce more resonance by adjusting your spurs to push the drum as far off the ground as possible.

With all these variations possible, drum tuning is more of an art than it is a science. The thing to do is to try as many different tuning combinations as possible, then pick the combination that sounds best for your specific style and situation.

How to Buy This Book

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Playing Drums, 2nd Edition, is available at bookstores everywhere, or you can order the book online by clicking the button to the right.