How to develop touch and tone on the drumset?

pinoydrummer

Senior Member
This question is inspired by Billy Ward who is really into developing touch
and tone. Here's an excerpt from Billy's book (Inside Out), about Elvin's touch.

That lesson with Elvin changed my life. We were upstairs in a little room and he
was on a practice set, these cheap, beat-up drums with terrible cymbals. But
when he played that set, he sounded just as good as he did on any Trane record.
The sound was inside of him, not in the gear he was playing.

Can you also name some drummers who you think has developed a
good touch and tone on their instrument?
 
Mostly all of the masters, like Morello, Rich, Lewis, Tate, Williams, Roach, Bellson,.....gosh, I'd be neglecting all of them if I tried to list them. I've always liked Danny Seraphines' touch and tone with early Chicago, and there are so many others. I'll just stop there.
 
Haha it reminds me of when I started buying decent gear for the first time. I bought some Paiste Signature hi-hats, based on samples only, not paying any attention to brand and prices.

I got the hi-hats, and for the life of me I couldn't get a sound I liked out of them. I thought maybe I had got a dud pair or something. Then magically over the years I learned how to pull the sounds I wanted out of them, and I now am 100% satisfied. It's not the gear, it's they way you play them.

I think it was Elvin Jones (?) who said if you don't know how to pull 20 different sounds out of your ride, you don't know what you are doing. Food for thought.
 
When the groove vs. chops conversation comes up, I try to throw tone in there as well. Honestly, it's the third dimension to playing that is so noticeable in situations such as you cited with Elvin, but so noticeably absent in a large number of players nowadays. "Just hit them things. Hit 'em harder." How we hit them, and what happens when we hit them, has to be part of the conversation too.

I try to start out having an instrument that is as pleasing to the ears as possible to start, and then I try to play it in such a manner that everything I hit makes the best possible tone for the song. When people come on here and say, "I have a '67 Supra and it sounds nothing like how Bonham made it sound", it's tone. It's touch. (Jason Bonham has a story about how his dad used to wring his signature sound out of his wretched little toy drumset. It's the tone.)
 
In additions to hand development...spend time with working with just one set item(hi-hat, snare, cymbals, toms etc). For example throne, sticks, one page of the Master Stidies book and hi-hat for a week! Focus on dynamics.....Denis
 
Too many drummers just hit things. They think about striking. They lack finesse. I had a great timpani teacher that could make those drums sing. His approach was that he did not think about striking as much as how to pull or lift the sound out of the drum. When you strike the head (or cymbal) think about the sound that you want to scoop or lift out of it. Let the instrument do its own work. Use no more power or speed than is necessary to extract the sound that at you want. Imagine the surface on fire, and get on and off again quickly. Think about setting in motion a resonance that you want to guide out of the instrument. That also take touch and hand and finger technique. Develop the hands of a musical surgeon!
 
Play different kinds of music. Start by listening to Ravels Bolero. 13 minutes of snare drum from barely audible to very loud cresendo. Listen to some classical music to hear very low percussion through out. If you want to play all rock and roll or heavy stuff, that is all you will learn
 
Second that-- spending some time learning concert percussion from somebody who knows what he's doing will help. In that world, tone quality is pretty much the main thing. You could track down the principle of your local symphony and get some timpani or concert snare drum lessons. Otherwise, just pay attention to the sound you're getting, refine your dynamics, and try to play with some "lift" in your stroke, and over time your touch will improve. Touch and sound are two of the major things that make somebody a good drummer, so any well-known drummer with any kind of subtlety to his playing will have developed them to a high level.
 
Try trimming down your set to the bare basics - snare, tom, kick, hats and a crash/ride. It forces YOU to make ALL the sounds you need with limited resources.

I played a 3-day weekend jam with my buddies a while back using the same set-up. At first I was lost, but by the end of the weekend I was comfortable. I did switch between hickory and maple sticks, rutes and brushes and sometimes even mixed them up. Point being, I could get all the voices I needed from my 3-piece set.

If you don't regularly play a 3-piece, try it!
 
Second that-- spending some time learning concert percussion from somebody who knows what he's doing will help. In that world, tone quality is pretty much the main thing. You could track down the principle of your local symphony and get some timpani or concert snare drum lessons. Otherwise, just pay attention to the sound you're getting, refine your dynamics, and try to play with some "lift" in your stroke, and over time your touch will improve. Touch and sound are two of the major things that make somebody a good drummer, so any well-known drummer with any kind of subtlety to his playing will have developed them to a high level.

So very, very true.... I spent a few years back in the mid-1980's working with a professional orchestral percussionist and I've played differently ever since. Amazing world of difference.
 
Can you also name some drummers who you think has developed a
good touch and tone on their instrument?

I would think any well known drummer that has put in tons of hours has developed a good touch and tone. Well, I guess they really don't even have to be well known. Practice, practice, and more practice is pretty much the answer.

A good example is a Dave Weckl clinic I saw years ago. After the clinic, he came back to the sales floor of the shop and was checking out some drums. He jumps behind one of those Gretsch Catalina Jazz kits and just goofed around for about a minute. He still sounded like Dave Weckl...and nothing like the kid that was jamming on the kit a couple hours prior. Clearly he has put in countless hours of practice to get his sound.

That's how we can recognize Elvin's drums, Eric Clapton's guitar, Elton John's piano, etc. It just takes a lot of practice. There isn't any shortcut for that.
 
Some touch and tone performances from the top drawer for inspiration:

Max Roach http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5Dj7HQEasQ

Steve Gadd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX2vacplf94

Bernard Purdie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCyRPCojb2Q

South African drummer, Tony Allen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngxaUjIYX1Y

Brian Blade with Black Dub http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_0zrd2u3uk

Thanks for the links. First time I've heard of Tony Allen and I very much enjoyed
his playing. Kinda reminded me of Idris Muhammad in Power of Soul. :)
 
Re: How to develop touch and tone on the drum set?

This is something that should be taught from day one instead of hitting the drums as hard as you possibly can. Your hands are your volume control to help extract those subtleties within your playing.

Dennis
 
I think touch and tone are directly related to the way you hold and move your sticks. Touch is something like a golfers swing, it's all about the physicality of you and your drumstick. Playing along to guys with great touch, IMO does nothing to show you how to do it. There are many different ways to move a stick. I think touch is a product of your technique. In other words listening won't help much as far as the mechanics go. Working on an efficient hand technique will though.
 
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Once my kit was used as a back up kit for all the bands at a music festival years ago, mostly local bands, but the last performer was a well known artist in my country, he was using a pro drummer, and he played on my kit, same tuning same mix as everyone else, same everything, but you wouldn't believe what the touch and tone of the drummer did on my kit, I thought what I was listening was not my kit, a great lesson indeed.
 
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