Wood. You Believe It.

Sometimes it's the really simple things that make the difference, and this little piece of simplicity provokes a disproportionately high level of curiosity so I shall attempt to explain.
As I tend to play largely acoustically resonance and projection are key, and I tune my drums for a bright, wide open sound without the extremes of over tuning favoured by some jazz drummers. To my mind a bass drum is a bass drum and should be in an appropriate register not sounding like a 16 inch floor tom.

So, bright, open sounding drums is the thing for me. One thing that is far more difficult to control though is the physical response of the drums in different acoustic settings, and as a drummer for whom technical facility is an absolute requirement of the musical context in which I regularly play, tuning for stick response is as important as tuning for sound. That means bottom heads a little tighter than top heads because if they are vibrating at a higher frequency the air moving inside the drum will maximise the response from the playing side.

However, you can spend all day fine tuning the instruments but if you get to work to find you are setting up on thick carpet that will suck all the life and brightness out of the drums. Sometimes in a challenging acoustic or in the studio that can be just what is needed, but for me a responsive snare is an absolute.

Anytime you get to play acoustic music in a beautiful concert hall on a wooden stage the drums sound and respond at their best. I remember vividly an afternoon concert at Muse Ark Hall in Japan, a more beautifully crafted and precision engineered performance space I have rarely if ever seen, and it brought out the very best in me as a player.

Fast forward a few years and I was in the Battersea branch of Homebase and they had offcuts of oak flooring for 50p each. On a whim I bought three of them and the difference in the snare drum response was incredible.  Brighter, clearer and much faster, so no matter where I'm playing, be it on a squelchy carpet, in a marquee, outdoors set up on grass (the worst! ) my snare drum sound and hand technique go everywhere with me.  On those occasions when I'm playing a house kit and the wood floor stays at home the difference is extraordinary, but for the most part I have my own go anywhere, portable concert hall stage. £1.50 well spent.

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