Billy Ashbaugh: Kit Dynamics

Here's a lesson on the beginning concepts of dynamics on the kit with your hands.

Hey everybody welcome back. Here we are we're back in the Drum Room. We're up and running officially now. I'm excited, Eric's excited, everybody's excited...so we're sitting around here thinking what's the first lesson we want to shot out here.

We've went through, we set everything up, talked through getting some angles. Talked through tuning, that sort of thing. So I thought, you know what, it's real important even if you're just beginning or picking up the sticks and getting into the drum set. I want to talk about dynamics.

Some of this stuff may be a little hard to get a hold of in the beginning but just put it in the back of your mind and you more seasoned guys just sort of revisit this stuff and check this out.

As drummers we spend the majority of our time (hand wise, we're going to discuss hands here dynamic wise first...we'll get to the kick latter) on three main sources. Our snare, hi-hat and the ride, where we keep our time. So we're going to look at those first.

First we'll look at the snare drum. Dynamically there is a technique called the rimshot. Very very important. What you do is, you strike the rim of the drum and the head at the same time to create a nice crack or fat back beat and it sounds like this.
Demonstration

You can hear how that sounds really abrasive and it brings out a lot of crack, a lot of body out of the snare. You want that so you can have a dynamic level up here, and then the ghost notes can be down here. You can get a lot of cool dynamic range out of your snare drum.

Now, finding that sweet spot where you can hit that rimshot with the right and left hand can be a little tricky. Sometimes you might find yourself hitting the rim only...it would sound like this.
Demonstration

Or sometimes you might be a little the other way and you might just end up hitting the head only, which would sound like this.
Demonstration

So like I said, don't freak out. It's no big deal, you're going to find your sweet spot. Here's a couple of things to pay attention to. Obviously the height and the angle of the snare drum. Concentrate on that first, especially if your seat height feels comfortable. But realize that you can lower or raise your seat slightly. So if your leg gets in the way of your right rimshot or vis-versa, whatever, you can get it. Again just be patient and remember you'll find it. Very very important. We're going to be doing a lot of ghost notes and a lot of rimshots  so work hard on that.

The second thing I'd like to talk about is the hi-hat. Now a lot of things are going on here with these two cymbals. We're going to concentrate, again, how we can get dynamics with our stick. I view it a lot like the snare drum, in that you have the shoulder of the stick hitting into the side or the flat of the hi-hat to create sort of a chunky-thick sound. Sounds like this.
Demonstration

Or you can take the tip of the stick and go to the center and get a much lighter sound like this.
Demonstration

So I sort view that as, the thick/shoulder part of the stick is almost like the rimshot and the tip is the lighter ghost note. So you're going to get those dynamics out of this as well.

Another thing to really consider right away that maybe tricky, your left foot. The amount of pressure that you're applying on these two cymbals as you put them together is going to have a great deal to do with how it feels as well, and the dynamics. I'll give you a quick demo of that.
Demonstration

Alright, the third is going to be the ride. The ride, just like the hi-hat, has the same thing going on. For our rimshot or aggressive sound we're back to the shoulder of the stick and the bell part of the cymbal. Sounds like this.
Demonstration

And then you have the tip of the stick and the flat of the cymbal. You hear a lot in jazz or swing or when your playing like straight 8th's of certain grooves. Sound like this.
Demonstration

And then again, just like the hi-hat, you can put them both together and do combinations
where you're playing the bell and the flat of the cymbal.
Demonstration

Alright, there you go, dynamics. Now again, we're just dealing with the hands only. Bass drum and the feet are going to come in later. But for now we're going to work on getting a dynamic range from our snare drum involving rimshots, ghost notes. Remember the shoulder of the stick, the tip of the stick. Pressure with the left foot really big. Ride, you've the bell and then the flat. OK, so I'll give you a quick demo of what these sound like and be sure and check back for more.