Yamaha Marching Help!!!

[drumbum911]

Alright, I think this goes here, not quite sure though. Anyways, my school drumline needs its drums tuned, and I'm the only one in the line that will do it. As for the basses, we have 4. We also have 2 sets of quads. Obviously from the title, all our gear is Yamaha. Anyways, for all four basses, and the four drums on each quad, what should the notes be, cause for one, i no the bases are an octave too low, sadly. Any suggestions? All help I can get is wanted!

Thanks in advance from me and all my WCHS Drumline '07 Buddies,
Ben (me), Ben, Paul, Sameer, Scott, Mike, Nicholai, David, Lonnie, Heather, Anthony, Sam, Vince, Keith, Alarich

^^^^
Yes, we have the biggest high school line in our county, maybe state, who knows :p

[maddrummr]

Hmm dont you have a staff member/ drum tech that handles that. At lemont high school we have a staff member that handles most of the tuning. When we do it ourselves and tune it to another drum that was already tuned.
I would ask your instructor to ask around other schools and see if they have any percussionists that are directors or if he/she knows of anybody that knows how to tune.

Our drumline is truly blessed with knowledge. One of our instructors was on the caveliers untill he aged out, he toured with Gwen Stefani (drum set) and he is a beast at every thing percussion.

[drumbum911]

that tech person would be me...our band director is a trumpeter, so he nos nothing. isnt there a way u can find out from ur line?

[maddrummr]

Well I could find out though, tomarrow i will not be attending our percussion class therefore i will not really see anybody (with the knowledge you need) from our drumline. Then you are going to have to wait a week because our band is taking a spring break trip to Florida.

I meant if your director could ask other bands. And the staff members im talking about are paid (almost) professionals that have gone to school to learn about their instrument and its basically their job to be a percussionist (or other instrument)

Maybe find a percussion lesson teacher in your area? He might help. But its just a guess.

[drumbum911]

about my private teacher, he's really amazing, but is clueless when it comes to marching drums. ive asked him before, but thanks for the idea. im glad i think like others :)

[crazyhorse]

That's the beauty about drums.. there is not a single right way to tune.

You should have a pretty good idea of the music you're playing with. Tune the drums to the music. They don't have to be in perfect pitch (chances are the different songs have different key signatures) but you should be able to nail down some pitches that sound good when you do bass drum runs, etc. Don't be afraid to crank up the tenors (quints or quads.. whatever) and get the tension up pretty high. My little 6 inch "crack" drum was TIGHT.

What heads are you using? I really liked the pinstripes on the pearl quints we played.

When it comes to the snares... crank'em... Just make sure they're all as close as possible to each other.

[drumbum911]

the snares i do, i crank 'em as tight as humanly possible with a wrench. as for the heads, they're all stock, but we need to replace the quads' heads soon. what notes are ur bases tuned to?

[KLittle123]

I think it really depends on alot of thinks. You usually want to tune the bassdrums to certain intervals away from each other. We have 8 bassdrums and have them at 3rds away from each other( I believe). You have been so you might want a wider interval, we played with a different band and they did 5ths, which seemed far away from each other. The quads you might want to do the same thing, have them all at equal intervals. I have to think of what ours are, and the snares it all depends on your style. Swing style and bands that are traditional usually don't have the snare heads incredibly high up so that gocks can be pretty pronounced while drumcorp style bands usually have high tension tuning where everything isn't as pronounced and it's pretty high tuned and you get extreme rebound. I'll write more as soon as I think of cause we haven't had marching in forever.

So really for the basses just tune the bottom one and go intervals up from there. It doesn't matter to specific notes really.

If you still have stock heads and you're cranking them as high as possible, I can't say thats a good idea, those heads'll be done pretty soon.

[crazyhorse]

Ditch the factory heads.... they suck.

3rds is a GREAT way to go.

[ChannelFish]

Yeah, I don't think having your bass drums set to a specific pitch should be a main point of concern, not at a high-school level anyway. I would focus more on getting the right intervals. 3rd's,4th's and 5th's all work, just a preference thing really. I wouldn't worry too much about the stock heads though. My line marched Yamahas with stock heads this past season with no sound or tuning issues. If you still need help I have a print-out from a DCI workshop explaining tuning strategies for all the battery. I could try digging them up and emailing them too you. Well good luck anyway and hope I gave some kind of useful information

[drumbum911]

Yeah, I don't think having your bass drums set to a specific pitch should be a main point of concern, not at a high-school level anyway. I would focus more on getting the right intervals. 3rd's,4th's and 5th's all work, just a preference thing really. I wouldn't worry too much about the stock heads though. My line marched Yamahas with stock heads this past season with no sound or tuning issues. If you still need help I have a print-out from a DCI workshop explaining tuning strategies for all the battery. I could try digging them up and emailing them too you. Well good luck anyway and hope I gave some kind of useful information

yes u did, but at my school, the drumline is probably the most popular of everything. the crowd loves us much much more than even the football team, and our school is all about the football. high school level or not, i think that was a tad insulting

[crazyhorse]

lol easy killer...

My old school has a huge line of first place drum line trophys from my days there. =) However... in the grand scheme of things.. it's just high school. You'll reallize that later on in life.

Incidentally... we marched 6 snares, 3 quints, and 6 bass drums.. fun times.

[drumbum911]

yes, but this is the drumline's first year for our school, and we're amazing drummers, so it went fast. we have 6 snares 2 quads and 4 bases, and i was kidding about it being offensive, i joke around a lot?

[KLittle123]

High School drumline is definitly 6 times funner than DCI. I have so many stories. you want to talk about big drumlines we have 8 bass drums, 8 snares, 4 quads, and 4 cymbals.

[Pete Stoltman]

High School drumline is definitly 6 times funner than DCI. I have so many stories. you want to talk about big drumlines we have 8 bass drums, 8 snares, 4 quads, and 4 cymbals.

Off topic I know but I can't stop myself. What DCI drumline did you play in? Not sure how high school drumline could be 6 times "funner" than playing in a quality DCI line.