...we discuss building your kit, starting from a carpet, adding each piece....talking about each as we go.
Ooooh! An excuse to rant about my pet peeve about kit setup!
Here’s the question that so often comes to mind when I see kits set up for performance: If you mentally divide your kit into left and right, and you draw a line straight through the drum kit to define the centre, where is that line?
To me, the snare is on the centre line. The throne is on the centre line. The centre line runs from the centre of the throne through the center of the snare. Left and right feet are equidistant from the centre line (disregarding multi-pedal setups). The bass drum is definitely NOT in the centre. The right foot is NOT pointing forwards; it’s pointing a bit off to the right.
So why does almost everybody set up with the bass drum parallel to the front of the stage, which leaves you facing a bit to the left? Is the average drummer really thinking that his bass drum is in the centre of his kit and/or pointing straight forward?
To clarify, if you think of a double kick setup, you’ll probably picture a kit with each bass drum angled out from the centre. Now try to picture that same kit with the right kick drum straight on to the front edge of the stage as if it’s a typical 1-kick kit. Suddenly looks ludicrous, right? The drummer is obviously facing a bit off to the side. So why do so many people ignore that seemingly-obvious fact when there’s only 1 kick?
To me, ergonomics and symmetricallity (er, symmetricalness? symmetricization?) are important in drumming. I don’t want to twist my spine to pretend that my bass drum is front and centre of my kit.
End of rant. You may now resume your day.
And Derek: keep up the good work! Looking forward to the new video.