How To Tune A Drum

Hi, I'm Rich from the Music Workshop Company. I'm going to show you some tips on how to drum. Okay, so what we're going to do is attach a drum head to a drum from scratch and then going on to tune it.

So the drum skin goes on top here like that and then the drum ring as this is called, goes on the sides like that. Now, the screws to the side get to be fitted into the screw holes here. It's not marked which ones, so you can do anyone, like that.

And you just need to make sure that they're all attached. First of all, at this point it's not crucial how tight they are, they just need to be kind of firmly fitted in. Now, if you're really organized, you can actually get a drill to do this, which is a lot quicker.

So that is fairly secure, but it's still not tight, so there's no tension on the drum skin, so you're going to get no sound out of that. This is where you need drum keys. The purpose of this exercise - I'm going to use two because it's a little bit quicker, it's not the end of the world if you don't have two, you can just use one – now, how you tune it is always in opposites.

So you go this side and that side, this side and this side, this side then this side. It doesn't matter which ones you start with as long as you always do opposites. Never around.

So I'm going to turn until these get tight. At this point, it's a question of judgment of how tight they actually get. So that's about right.

I would say about, seven or eight turns at this point, until they get tight. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight. We're getting there.

It's a little bit tighter. Now, at this point, this is where you start tuning. I would start with one turn, one turn here, one turn here.

Now, at this point, I can feel that this screw is slightly less tense than this. I'm going to loosen this one up. Again, this is a question of judgment, you've got to judge how tight some of these screws will be, a little bit less than the other.

I'm going to do it again, so I'll go about ninety degrees with this one. Now, at this point, we have a sound. This is where it gets a little bit more detailed.

Now, you have to take the sides. If you feel as though one side sounds a little bit different, then you have to just send that one up a little bit. That one's okay.

The drum is now - this side of the drum is pretty much done. Now, the mistake that most people make when they're not happy with the sound of their drum is they're constantly fiddling around with the top. Now, what's the biggest mistake made here is the sound, the bottom head judges the sound very much.

What I would do at this point, if you can't tell whether the sound is too high or too low, I would just, if I would just do that, that greatly adjusts the sound, if I just turn these about 25 degrees. That really changes the pitch. I like with this particular drum, I like for it to be a little more high pitched than that, so I'm going to turn these about 90 degrees.

Always opposite. And that is just about right. If it's a new head, it would need a playing in and you could always push down here and you'll hear a cracking noise.

It's absolutely fine, it's basically like getting a new pair of walking shoes, you have to walk them in a bit. It's the same with a drum set, you have to play a little bit to get a nice sound out of them. And that should be how to tune your drum head from scratch. .