How To Play Concert Bass Drum

This post is about how to play a concert bass drum. But first, make sure to know the difference between concert bass drum and marching bass drum because both have several distinct in term of size and sound.

You don’t just hit a bass drum blindly like a non-percussionist or anyone who doesn’t have a music background. There is proper way to play them. Playing a concert bass drum is not as easy as it seems. Most people thought playing a bass drum is just by hitting a big surface with a mallet. They were wrong. Dead wrong.

There are three area to hit on the concert bass drum. These three area will produce different sounds each. First one, the center part of the skin. Player tend to hit the part one when they need a big accent on the drum. Second, off center which is the general play for most of the time. Soft sound as bass roll that sounds like timpani roll are played on the near the ring of the bass drum. Muffling the skin is a crucial part for playing the bass drum because without muffling the skin, continuous notes will produce different sound each time it is played and cause a negative impact for the song. This video will show you the correct way to muffle a concert bass drum and some more tips on how to play concert bass drum

How to Do Thumb Rolls on Tambourine

Tambourine is a simple percussion instrument, yet have multiple methods to play with. One interesting technique to play tambourine is “Thumb Rolls”. The thumb roll or can also be called finger rolls technique can be played to add the flavor of the music piece because of the soft roll that will be produced. Sometimes, some songs require this technique to be played. There are some types of tambourine but this method needs a tambourine with a flat surface on one side instead of an open ring.

First, the most important of the technique is to not to try so hard on the tambourine surface and makes it hard to produce the sound. Try to add some wax on the surface or wet your thumb so you have an adequate friction applied on the surface. Take your thumb like a hitchhiking, rub around the head and just following the curve. Try push you thumb from softer and then repeat the same way harder until you found the accurate pace to produce the perfect thumb roll sound. It won’t work the first time you rub it, but if you keep using the same way as mentioned and finally found the exact way to roll it, you will not regret learning it. This video will show you how it’s done plus using index finger to make rolls on tambourine.

How to Play Tubular Chime

Chime is a percussion musical instrument which look as metal tube that are suspended on a rack. It is usually played in a big symphony or wind orchestra and in music piece that involve a bell sound alike. If you never listened to the sound of chimes, try imagine the sound of the bell at the church. Just like vibraphone, it comes with dampen pedal. When you press the pedal, the sound of the pipe will sustain and once it is released, the sound will not sustain but produces a staccato sound. Other than releasing the pedal to dampen the sound of the chime, you may also use the other hand to dampen any particular note so that the previous note does not interfere with the next one.

In order to play the instrument, you need a good chime hammer with a great weight, made out of plastic. The hammer needs to have two sides with an uncovered, plastic side and one side with felt for a soft timber option. The plastic side can produce an articulate sound on the chime and the side that covered with felt can produce a softer, warmer sound. If the song requires two hands, make sure to use both hammer with the same type and same weight. To give you more tips on how to play chime, you may watch this video.

How to Play Vibraphone

A vibraphone is a cousin of the xylophone, but vibraphone or vibes bars are made of a metal alloy. Vibraphone bars can resonate for a very long time if desired. Vibe comes with a pedal. Try to keep a little weight on the pedal while you’re playing the instrument so that you don’t slap the pedal causing an unwanted noise to occur. If you have your foot constantly in contact with the pedal, you can work the mechanism very subtly. The alternately opening and closing of the resonant tube creates the vibrato effect. The motor that controls the fans is usually one of variable speed which gives the percussionist the option of a slow or fast vibrato effect. 

Dampening involves playing a note with one mallet and dampening the note with your other mallet. If you play a note with the mallet in your left hand, you can dampen that note with the mallet in your right hand and vice versa. To dampen the bar with the mallet you have to slide the mallet firmly on the ringing bar. Place your mallet on the bar near the node and slide the mallet toward the center of the bar while pressing firmly down onto the bar. It’s a little tricky at first, but once you work out the coordination you’ll be able to play a nice legato passage. Here is a video of vibraphone lesson to give  you more clarity.

How to Play Timpani

Timpani can change the mood, the emotion in any piece in orchestra. Timpani usually consists in a set of four drum. First, you have to know how to read a bass clef music because timpani do not use treble clef score. Arrange your timpani set into semi circle so you can easily reach all four. Check your music sheet for the notes that you need to use then tune the timpani. Usually, there is a paddle at the bottom of the timpani to change the tune. Do not easily change the tune by looking at the tuning gauge and think it is the right sound because the tuning gauge can be change and not precise. Use tuner or vibraphone if there is one, to level the tune you need. Then you can move the alphabet at the tuning gauge as a mark for your needed tune. 

The highest note goes to the smallest timpani and the lowest note goes to the biggest one. Grab a mallet in which your music sheet required such as general mallet, articulate mallet, staccato mallet, or ultra staccato mallet. Different mallet produces different sound. You do not use staccato mallet for soft crescendo roll on timpani. Practice a lot of paradiddle because playing four different notes on four different huge drums will be hard en you use single stroke. Timpani role is one of the crucial part when you play timpani. So here is the video lesson on how to play timpani roll.