It’s a drumset. There’s no inherent logic. Unless you need to believe there is.
You know other instrumentalists don’t fret about stuff like this. Imagine if the piano player wanted one note somewhere else within the octave? Or if the trumpet player wanted more valves than three. Drummers are lucky that they get to put pieces where they want them, or to conform to what they see in a catalog. So it’s really all about you anyway.Logic? Don’t you oppress me!
Seriously though, I once assembled the drums I have all scrambled before returning back to a trad 4 piece, and I loved everything except the bigness. I loved having my main rack and floor in the 4 pc spot, I loved doing a roll around the toms without going in strict descending order, etc. But when it gets down to it, I’m a 1 up 1 down type. But if I could figure out a way to reverse my rack and floor without it being a struggle to position them, I’d darn sure do it.
Right. But you can get trumpets with an extra valve. The 3rd valve can be messy for intonation and the 4th valve solves that, so I’m told. Never played one but played trumpet in high school, and that 3rd valve can be a pain.You know other instrumentalists don’t fret about stuff like this. Imagine if the piano player wanted one note somewhere else within the octave? Or if the trumpet player wanted more valves than three. Drummers are lucky that they get to put pieces where they want them, or to conform to what they see in a catalog. So it’s really all about you anyway.
I eventually opted for the latter, but the former is exactly why I switched them around. Wasn’t so bad when I had my racks on a stand, but I got another bass drum with a tom mount, and then that 10 became a massive headache in that spot.The spot right in front of the snare drum is going to get hit a lot, so maybe if somebody doesn't want their 10" going pew pew all night, they might switch them around. That's why I would do it. Or I'd actually just leave the 10 at home.
Only at home. And lately not even there.People play with more than one rack tom?
Wow, that’s way too much for me to consider. All I did was see Billy Cobham and Mick Fleetwood mixing up their drums, and thought, hey, that could be interesting.I’m thinking for those that do utilize this type of arrangement, it’s a sticking or pattern preference.
(Check out Shannon Larkin.)
Or maybe for some of the drummers who set up like that is akin to timpani and field marching dexterity with tris, quads, quints, and sextets.
If you understand how their drum placement it’s fundamentally sound logic and yes they are arranged differently.
Basically in musical notation for tris, quads etc… your alternating right leading strokes from highs to lows, rather than arranging sizes going linear down the ledger.
Timps are typically set up with smaller sizes on the right with largest being directly left.
I think he uses that right-hand small tom for accents, but I too say the same thing. It works for him.No matter what the reason..logical or not whenever I see photos of Kenny Aronoff to this day I think.. Kenny...stop doing that.