drumming secrets

I have been doing a lot of clinics and tuning workshops, but still every now and then some questions pop-up of which the answers still remain mysterious to me. Some of these questions brought me back to years ago, when I thought I knew everything about drums….and then there was that question about tuning marching drums…..

Let me share a short but interesting story with you about this subject….I remembered that a long time ago, back in 1992, I worked in very small local music shop. One day a marching corps came in and looked for somebody to tune their drums. Of course I replied that I could do that easily, because I had tuning skills for drum sets and explained I was well experienced at that. Their leader wanted to give me the chance, so there I was, stuck with 25 snare drums and 3 bass drums to tune in one week! 

First thing I did: I played on the snare drums and I thought they sounded horrible; no body to the shell, far too high pitched and extremely dull! The bass drums sounded too muffled to me and I was certain they came to the right address to tune them up! 

Without asking them what they would like to hear, I started to fix every drum and make them sound deep and powerful by changing the drum heads and tune them “properly”. They came to pick them up and I was convinced that they would be more than extremely happy with ‘my way’ of tuning their drums. A week later they returned to the shop with the complaint that al the drums sounded ‘too boomy’and too powerfull! They even said: “Man, you made them sound ‘out of tune’! You have to fix it!!!” 

This was the moment where I learned that I should have asked them what sound they were looking for,…and then simply do the job right! In the end I managed to fix the sound to their taste and they left happy.

Although I did a good job in the end, I still wasn’t sure how to tune marching drums. Today, many years later, I have decided to find a professional on that territory and ask him to demonstrate me how to get the best sound out of marching drums.

I found one of Holland’s best experienced drum tuner ever Jon Evers. for more than 16 years he has been tuning at least 16.000 marching drums a year!!!  Speaking in ‘professional’ terms, I have never met somebody like Jon that is so passionate about tuning drums. He knows exactly what works and what not if it comes down to getting the right and the best sound for marching drums. Besides all this, he also a great drummer and teacher. He invited me and showed me all his skills in maintenance and tuning. I was in total awe to listen and learn from his guy. He showed me possible technical malfunctions of strainers, took drums completely apart, modified them, tuned them and then also played some amazing stuff!! He shared all his little ‘secrets’ with me, so feel really honoured and obliged to use this information, also during my clinics and tuning workshops for marching corps. 

Have a look on the pictures and enjoy his enthusiasm. And if you want to know more about this topic, visit one of my Marching Drums workshops, where I will always have a SONOR Marching bass drum and a snare drums with me!