by Yukon conga » Sun Jun 24, 2001 9:05 pm
Hey Drumaholic
The way I’ve learned from books, videos and practise to do a slap is to move your hand slightly in towards the center of the drum, so that the knuckles (or more correctly, the area where you would get calluses from chopping wood or shoveling) are just in past the rim of the drum. Because my hands are both pointing toward the center of the drum, it’s actually the callus below my little finger that is just barely onto the drumhead. The rest of my hand(s) is further onto the head.
As with all the strokes, keep your hands and arms relaxed. When you slap, your fingertips kind of whip the head and at the moment of contact should try to sort of grab the head. So the slap sound is being produced by two things: (1) The Fingertips Striking The Head, as opposed to the tone where the whole surface of the fingers bounce off the head. Of course, when you slap your hand should not bounce off the head and if you were to freeze your hand in that position for a sec you could slide the index finger of your other hand in (2) The Hollow you’ve created with that subtle grabbing of the head.
I also find it a bit more effective to slap in a bit of a diagonal direction toward the center as opposed to coming straight down onto the drum. Oh, and by the way, keep your thumb up or it’ll get mighty sore from hitting the rim!
To get the best sounding slaps use the quinto or secunda. I find the tumba kinda hard to get a crisp slap out of. Also, try a bit of amplification. Either with mic and amp or playing in a place with lots of natural amplification and some reverb. You’ll be amazed at how much better your drums sound!
There are some good books and videos out there. For basic techniques with clear explanations I could recommend the video from Dancing Hands Music by Alan Dworsky. They also have a book/CD combo with a variety of rhythms.
Hope my explanation is clear. Also hope it's correct. I'm open for criticism, everybody.
Ross