Only slaps the whole time? - what about the open tone?

[Zoomby]

Hi!

Everybody talks about the slap. But what is the right
technic for the open tone? I ever asked me which part
of the hand should hit the drum, or should my hand be
absolutely flat? That's very difficult. Is there a way to
train it?
Tell me about your experiences
Thanks
Zoomby

[handsoffire]

Hi Zoomby- well here it is: To make a open hand tone, you first need to know where to put your hands. Think of the drumhead as the face of an old fashioned clock point your hands towards the center. On a middle sized drum, your right should be between the 4 and 5 and your left hand between the 7 and the 8. Keep your hands in line with your forearms, so that you could draw a straight line from your elbow through your middle finger. Consider this hand position as home base most of the strokes are played from this position.

The open tone is made by bouncing your fingers off the drumhead you will get the correct bounce and make the right sound by focusing not on the fingers but rather on the relation of your palm to the edge of the drum. If you get your palm in the right position, the finger will take care of themselves.

Start with either hand a couple inches above the drum and bring your hand to the drum by simply lowering it with the forearm and adding a little wrist action.

Your palm should hit the edge of the drumhaed just below the joints where the fingers attach to the palm (hitting directly on the joints will injure them).

Keep your fingers together, but keep the thumb out of the way by pulling it either up or back so you don't whack it on the edge of the drum.

When the palm hits the edge of the drum, your hand should be in line with your forearm and your hand and forearm together should be pointed up at a slight angle.

Keep your fingers relaxed, so that when the palm hits the edge of the drum the fingers automatically bounce down an back up. When they finish the bounce, they should be back in line with hand and forearm.

After finishing the stroke you can either leave the palm resting on the edge of the drum or lift the hand immediately to make the next stroke.

A good open tone should have a clear round sound with a distinct pitch, to contribute to the melody when you play in a group your open tones must sing.

(WELL SORRY I TYPED SO MUCH BUT YOU ASK)

Let me know how it goes, send me some feedback.

Good luck

Handsoffire NYC

[Drumaholic]

I think people talk about the slap is because it really adds an expressive voice to the drum, and also because it's harder to produce than a tone or bass. (Not to say that playing a good open tone or bass is easy). What really works for me is just sitting down and repeatedly trying to get the best sound, experimenting, and consciously changing muscle tension, finger position, etc. I don't play any rhythm or pattern but focus on getting that hand to do what I want. When I finally get it I try to remember what I did and keep doing it, then work on the other hand.

[Bongo Boy]

I'm a beginner. What I've found is that you'll know a good, open tone when you hear it, BUT, you may never hear it if your drum is tuned poorly. Having no clue as to what proper tuning might be, I simply experimented. I did this by tuning the drum up to where I usually did when I first got it, then try about 20 or so open tone attempts, adjusting just about everything until I could repeat the 'best' tone.

Then, I would go around the lugs and tighten each one about 1/8 turn, or less, and then try 20 or so open tones again to isolate the difference due to tuning, from the differences due to immature, irregular technique.

Repeat this whole process over and over again until NO amount of smacking the drum will produce a decent open tone--it's simply tuned too high to EASILY produce an open with decent sustain.

Then, repeat the entire process AGAIN, but by loosening the lugs--again, a tiny wee bit at a time. This is the process I had to go through because I have no experience, no teacher, and the audio on the VHS instructional tapes I have is pretty nasty (although there's no good reason for that).

On your way down in pitch during this process, I think you'll pass through 2 or 3 frequencies where the drum resonates real nice (uh...I guess those would be the 'resonant frequencies' of the drum, heh, heh). After doing this 2 or 3 times, I got convinced of where the drum sounded its best and produced the sweetest open tone. At the lowest of these sweet spots, the open tone is BIG and easy, the slap is impossible. At the highest of these spots, my pathetically immature slap occassionally sounds like one, but the open tone is a little tougher to get and doesn't have the sustain--but it still sounds fairly big and resonant.

It also seems that at the higher pitches, the drum likes to be struck a little further out toward the rim--a little less than an inch further, I think, on the quinto.

Remember, these comments come from a complete neophyte who knows very close to nothing--a sanity check is advised.



Edited By Bongo Boy on Jan. 25 2002 at 02:20