I finally get this small kit thing!!!

AzHeat

Platinum Member
There have been so many threads about small kits being where it’s at and the freedom to be creative....this is not intended to be one of those.

I’ve always played 6 or 7 piece and every time I read one of these threads I would get super frustrated. Less toms were just less toms. My fils would still sound the same, because I was the one behind the kit. I have to admit that after all these years I finally get it. Not the freedom part, not the creative part, but why a smaller set was so absolutely frustrating. Every time I shed toms, it was the same thing...the same question...now what!?

I didn’t realize the appeal until I started taking lessons. A few sessions in and blamo! I suck! My foot’s fast, my timing is decent, but my creativity is hampered by the lack of skills. When I started the lessons I stripped off toms so I could practice the lessons I was going through in lower volume. Keeping things close made it easier is all. It hasn’t been long, but I finally get how some of you make it through the older songs with big fills. I also discovered I really don’t enjoy those as much as before.

Don’t know if my kit will stay as a miniaturized version of its previous self indefinitely, but probably the first time since I picked up sticks that a smaller kit hasn’t been annoying.

I think after reading all the threads and comments on how creative, what freedom, etc., it boils down to skills and preferences. I don’t hit things because they are there. Never felt that way about more toms. Shrinking things down can only help you be creative, if you have skills. TNo one seems to ever say that!

Thought I would post, this because I read and read and never saw no posts to this fact. At least for me. Maybe someone else found the same to be true?

Long live big or small kits, whichever you prefer. :)

Oh and one more thing! Less cymbals aren’t the same thing, unless I’m missing something there too!
 
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I could tell you have been opening up to the Idea, it just took a while to really give it a go. I have noticed a change since you started taking lessons, more open to different idea's and how you practice. Im ready to get on the wagon with you, I have outgrown drum covers after making 60 + now. Glad to see the new Ryan.
 
I guess the big revaluation was when I discovered it actually can work for me. Easy to be blind after 35 years of playing without lessons. Sad, but I guess better late than never. We’ll see how I feel about it in a year. I hit a wall with covers too. I just suddenly lost interest and had to look elsewhere. All the threads about finding a good teacher, etc. and had to try something new. Never had much luck with finding good teachers and life just got in the way. I can finally focus on trying to learn new skills. About time!
 
I rarely ever hesitate when improvising a fill with a 4 piece over a 7 piece. It's not that I have to think about what I'm doing, it's just that I tend to feel the need to hit everything I can when playing subconsciously. And a four piece is much easier lug around, too. But when it comes to accessories, I tend to go crazy.
My main setup consists of a four piece, hats, ride, and crash, but with a hi-hat tambourine, jam block, cowbell, another high-pitched cowbell by my right bass drum pedal, and a 10 in piccolo snare.
 
I rarely ever hesitate when improvising a fill with a 4 piece over a 7 piece. It's not that I have to think about what I'm doing, it's just that I tend to feel the need to hit everything I can when playing subconsciously. And a four piece is much easier lug around, too. But when it comes to accessories, I tend to go crazy.
My main setup consists of a four piece, hats, ride, and crash, but with a hi-hat tambourine, jam block, cowbell, another high-pitched cowbell by my right bass drum pedal, and a 10 in piccolo snare.

This is definitely a benefit. I’ve had 2 cowbells and three blocks for a long time, but have only been able to use one at a time. Working on world beats is part of regimen now, so having them all attached is a huge plus.

The best part is once you get your creativity up on a small kit you can go absolutely nuts on a large one!

I so look forward to that. I’ve had to force myself away from prog rock for now, so I don’t start missing my extra toms. Will be interesting to see what tricks I could pull off when I do. That genre has been a hang up to some extent I suppose. We just had the thread about playing as close to the original as possible and kinda tough to pull some of those prog songs off without a row of toms. Realistically though, if it’s just me and my practice, why have I cared so much about being true to the original? It’s the part that’s kept me from changing things till I was forced to!

It’s been said here before. Recording yourself, really helps you find the rough spots. Nothing got me to hate my playing more than playing back my recordings. It was time to grow....
 
Interesting discussion. My take on the big kit vs little kit thing is on the work you are doing. If you primarily make your income from being in a cover band covering certain types of material, then that should dictate what you do. Imagine going to see a Rush tribute band, and the drummer is using only four drums? Or if you see a Rolling Stones tribute band and the drummer has two bass drums on stage?

If you're playing your own music, or doing a mixture of things with your own twist, then use what you need musically. Some guys can speak volumes with there drums, other guys can't speak at all with Carl Palmer's set. It gets back to the music you make.
 
You know, I got into the small kit thing through the sheerest of laziness.

I got tired of carrying a lot of equipment to bar gigs. So, necessity required that I learn how to do what I needed to do on as few pieces of equipment as possible.
 
I’ve always played 6 or 7 piece and every time I read one of these threads I would get super frustrated. Less toms were just less toms. My fils would still sound the same, because I was the one behind the kit. I have to admit that after all these years I finally get it. Not the freedom part, not the creative part, but why a smaller set was so absolutely frustrating. Every time I shed toms, it was the same thing...
Well, if you want to make a small drumset sound big, of course you have to be creative somehow. But you also need a certain set of skills to transfer that creativity onto the small drumset. Without a certain skillset, you just can't speak on drums. And this is where paradiddles etc. begin to play a bigger role. You don't have to be a genius, but you should know some of them and be able to use some of them. They allow you to speak in a different way with just a snare and two toms. You have to get out of the "box"-thinking for many classic tom fills that we know from 80's rock, where you start on the snare, then run down all your toms, hitting each four times, until you reach the floortom and end it all with a crash. Tadadadadadadadadadadada-Pchhhhh!

This basic but widespread pattern cannot (and imo should not) be applied on a 4pc set very often, for obvious reasons. So you have to rethink the music, the fills and spread the hits differently on snare, tom and floortom, using one of them for a stronger accent maybe. Dynamics become important here, too. You might also end up not playing 1-2-3-4 but 1-e-a-2-a-3-4-e in a fill. If you listen closely to some popular drummers that use 4pc setups, like Joe Morello or Ash Soan, you can learn a lot about how fill patterns can be created, how they can sound, melt with the music. Listen closely and study them and you will get to know the little things that make fills special on a 4pc set.

For some, it will take longer to adapt to a 4pc-set. For others, the transistion will be faster. Don't rush yourself. Take your time. And keep your eyes and ears open, be open to new ideas. Sometimes something "silly" leads to something great in the end.

Oh and one more thing! Less cymbals aren’t the same thing, unless I’m missing something there too!
Ugh, you might hate me now, but - you are missing something there, too. :-D

You can get many different sound out of a cymbal and the patterns you play on them are also numerous and have an effect on the "versatility" of a cymbal. Dynamics is again a very important part here (and many people do not care enough about dynamics on drums imo).

Do the following: Take one of your rides and just play that cymbal, explore its many facets. There is a bell, there is the upper bow, there is the middle section, the lower ow. You can play it with wood and nylon tips, brushes, mallets, rods, you can crash it, using the upper part of the stickshaft for a cutting sound and also the lower part of the stickshaft, which will result in a mellower, warmer sound. You can add a sizzlechain to it. You can put a bling ring on it and so on... Many many many sounds can be created with just one cymbal. Give it a try. ;-) Hihat, Ride and 1 or 2 crashes is all you need 95% of the time.

But in the end: We are all different. Some won't feel comfy with a 4pc. Nothing bad at that. Some people will always have problems with big drumsets. Nothing wrong with that. To each his own. Just keep your mind open and everything is cool.
 
I'm experiencing some of that too. I played a big 10 piece kit for about 7 years (kind of a Neil Peart/Phil Collins type rig, 4 rack toms, 3 floor toms, gong drum, the works lol), and having to downsize to a 5 piece kit for practicality's sake. Of course my setup shifted from that to 12,14,16,22 which wasn't so bad, since that was the core of my setup anyway, but now with my new kit the setup is 10,12,16,22 which is different since it's such a departure from what my "core kit" has been for as long as I can remember.

I feel like bigger kits just make you feel like a better drummer, but when you take all of it away, you have to find different ways to accomplish the same thing. Of course, every time you change, you also have to allot yourself time to get used to all of it as well.
 
For me playing a smaller kit is all about counting and spacing. Someone above recommended rudiments, but IMO that gets old on the ears fast especially if it isn't split across different drums. If you've got it a technical fill here or there isn't bad. I recommend getting some independence exercises to practice the accents.

I was at big open concert the other day Octobierfest, the music is too loud so I stand near the back, all I could hear were vocals and crashes, so IMO the rest was just there for the looks.
 
Interesting discussion. My take on the big kit vs little kit thing is on the work you are doing. If you primarily make your income from being in a cover band covering certain types of material, then that should dictate what you do. Imagine going to see a Rush tribute band, and the drummer is using only four drums? Or if you see a Rolling Stones tribute band and the drummer has two bass drums on stage?

Yup, it's more about having the right tools for the job.
 
I never understood why there has to be 2 mindsets. I think the same no matter what kit is in front of me. The only difference is more or less targets. What I feel the music needs changes not, if I'm on a 3 piece set or an 8 piece set. Obviously I can't do a big hero fill around the kit with a 3 piece, but I can play the exact same fill using less drums and it would still work as well as the same fill played over 5 toms. Sometimes it even works better on less drums.

Same thing with trad grip. Some guys feel music differently according to their grip. Which is cool. It's never been a thing with me, I feel it how I feel it. My grip is a utilitarian choice, not a musical choice for me.

But everyone is different. Everyone must seek their own path, no 2 of us are alike.
 
Thanks All for your input. Part of my post sounds very simplistic. It’s like well duhhhhh! It’s a bit more than that though. Of course you can break up fills into more than the around the house 4 hits per tom for the big finish. I’ve done this for years, but I guess the bigger set and prog rock helped me hide and also get super frustrated with the changes. I’d read how liberating a 4pc is and how it makes you creative and I’d go from 10 - snare - 12 - snare - kick - 14 -16 - kick - snare on my ful set to snare 12 - kick - snare - 16 and uh oh! It all sounds exactly the same no matter what I do, and most of it sounded like pfpfpftttt.

Then I’d start thinking how in the word does anyone actually keep true to the song like they say they do and pull it off on a small set. I finally realized you don’t. There’s really no way to, but you can create the illusion with dynamics and a decent set of skills. Of course you wouldn’t try and replicate a rush song on a 4pc live. Before I’d just add the toms in and say to each his own. Now I’m actually just pausing the music and saying to hell with the original, can I develop the feel with what I have and sit there for an hour.

I think it’s the claim of true to original I’ve been struggling with, until it hit me. It’s not the actual fill, but the message the fill conveyed. Can it be said the same way using less without sounding mechanical, repetitive and just plain boring! I’ve discovered, yes, but have to shed the true to original piece, unless in a tribute band. That’s where the disconnect was. Play for perfection, or communicate? Once I was over the it has to sound exactly like the original and started working in my sticking, suddenly the extra toms were nice to haves and not necessities. I think that’s where the bulb went off for me.

Wave Deckl, I totally get the different sound from cymbals thing, but while my ride can give me a lower crash sound than my 17 and 18, it’s still not the same as the short trashy sound of my ozone. I can sort of replicate the short hit of a China on the hats too, but I just don’t feel their in the same category as shedding toms. To me when you show up with hats a crash and a ride, unless it’s a real small venue, I keep hearing the same psssst, ping, and whoosh over and over. It’s much more exhausting than hearing someone break down a nice fill on a small kit. You’re just hitting them far too frequently, unless it’s something like a piano bar where the big crash and ride are so mellow and warm, I just want to eat them!
 
Of course a Hihat is not a China. But a 12" tom ain't a Gong-tom either. They are different instruments/voices that can or rather need to be used in a different way. Just like with toms, you need to think outside the box when using less cymbals. And no, even if you only have 2 crashes and a ride and some hats, it doesn't have to sound "boring" and "always the same". :) And you should of course think about which cymbal will be a good fit in your setup and which don't. Sometimes you might want to use all cymbals from one series, sometimes from diffferent ones.

Just a quick and dirty example of how you can get different sounds out of three cymbals. Mark Guiliana is pretty good at that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsf9dQuAIY4

Now is that really boring, monotonous? I guess the audience would say "nope, that's pretty cool". :)
 
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I like to learn on my small kit. when you can't do the "around the world" fills hitting the toms in succession it forces you to do linear stuff or move around back and fourth. Once I have a fill/pattern down like as no ones business adding in the other toms make use them being creative..

I played a gig a bit ago and the drummer who was sharing gear said he wouldn't be able to play as it was a 4 piece kit and not a 5. I said the patterns are the same you just need to change the placement but he had a very hard time with it. I noticed he was the 16th note 4 on each drum kindof guy, but still.

I used to play an 11 piece kit, going down to a small kit made me much more creative as I wanted different sounds and to not sound repetitive. Another thing that was game changing was all the left hand lead and accents I do. groups of 3,5,7, and over the barline stuff.
 
I prefer small kits and have for a while now. I tend not to need additional toms or cymbals for the stuff i play. 2 things i realized: 1) 80-90% of my playing is done on the kick, snare, ride, and hi-hat. 2) the less gear i haul the quicker it is to breakdown so i get a chance talk with the people who have been so kind as to come out for the gig.. I want to address your point about cymbals. this depends on the quality and size in my experience. If you have a decently large and thin cymbal you can get an astounding variety of sounds out of it based on how you hit it. If you are using smaller or thicker cymbals they tend to be more one dimensional. I prefer to have hats and 2 cymbals.
 
I think it's nice to have a big kit to select your small kit needs. I have played gigs with just one floor tom was all I needed, most just needed two toms (but I like a choice of 10" with 14" toms, and a 12 or 13 with a 16 tom, and then the rare four tom or more set up. Having a larger (22-26) and smaller kick(16-20) are nice options to have for picking your needs. But I like playing smaller kits.
 
It's a great feeling when you figure that you can play anything on a 4/5 piece. I remember guys saying that to me when I was in my teens and I never got it until I started gigging lots and having lessons.

I've never looked back other than a Genesis tribute which was more for looks than anything else but was built around a 5 piece like Phil Collins.

I always feel a bit overwhelmed on a bigger kit but bigger kits are easier to play just harder to lug around!
 
I didn’t realize the appeal until I started taking lessons. A few sessions in and blamo! I suck!

Congrats on the revelation. Some guys go their whole lives without having to face their limitations. Now it's just many hours or practice ahead of you but practice is fun. Getting better and looking back on how far you're come is even more fun! My favorite part is pulling off a nice groove or fill that you wouldn't
have be able to play before.

Who did you find for lessons? Someone on the East Valley?
 
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