Drum tuning

[64Guitars]

Things that make you go "Hmmmmm".

The subject of drum tuning puzzles me. As far as I know, there's no standard tuning reference or concert pitch for drums. Each drummer just tunes one drum (usually the snare, I think) till he likes the sound of it. Then he tunes each drum relative to the snare - hi tom a bit lower than the snare, mid tom a bit lower than the hi tom, floor tom lower still, and so on. Even this relative tuning isn't generally done to any standard or with any repeatable precision. The drummer just keeps fiddling with the tension till he likes the sound. The next time he replaces a drum head, he'll again tune it till he likes the sound. But, chances are, the tuning of the new head will not be the same as the old head because he has no reference and has not taken any measurements of pitch or tension.

Although we don't usually think of drums as having pitch, they do. If you took 12 or more drums and tuned them a semitone apart, you could play a melody on them. It might not sound that good because of the percussive nature of the sound but the melody would be recognizable. So why is there no reference pitch nor even a standard defining the relative pitches of each drum to the others? I find this weird.

Even weirder - why don't drummers have to re-tune their drums when the band changes key? I mean, let's assume that a band is playing a song in E minor and the drums sound great. Now the next song the band plays is in C major. Regardless of whether the drums were tuned to a reference pitch and tuning standard or not, how can the tuning that worked for E minor also work for C major?

I suppose it's something to do with the short duration of each 'note'. Perhaps the human ear has trouble detecting pitch at short durations, so it doesn't notice that the drums are not in tune with the rest of the instruments. Yet, if a pianist or guitarist was playing 64th notes at a fast tempo, you'd still be able to tell if his instrument was out of tune, despite the short duration of the notes. What's different about drums?

I realize that it would be very impractical to re-tune acoustic drums for each song. But it could easily be done with electronic drums and drum machines. Why don't electronic drum kits have a setting for the key of the song? It would be easy enough to do. Wouldn't the drums sound better if their pitch had some standard relationship to the pitch of the other instruments in the band?

[Oldrottenhead]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Greeny]

Drums can be tuned?! Really? (I just checked the date and it's not April 1st...!).

I had no idea!

I just thought you could change how taut they are for the style / sound you want.

Nope... tuning drums still doesn't compute. I'm going off to think about something easier to comprehend now... ha ha

[henwrench]

http://www.wembleydrumcentre.com/Catalogue/Drum-Centre/Drum-Accessories/Tuning-Tools/Drum-Dial-Precision-Drum-Tuner-ADD?gclid=CMbbr6_09LcCFc3HtAodhQcA3Q

    I could go on about this...

        Yes, tuning drums is REAL...

            As for 64's question about keys, it's more to do with the cymbals. AC/DC is a classic example of well used cymbals. The 'correct' cymbal is used when going from say an A to E (lower pitched, to emphasise the 'down') and another higher pitched cymbal is struck when going from the E to, say, a C. Listen closely and you'll see what I mean. A 'good' drummer is more concerned with having many cymbals and less so with loads of tom-toms, as the correct use of cymbals will highlight chord changes. So now you know...

                                                             henwrench

[Jarle]

This might explain why drums doesn't sound out of pitch when properly tuned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpitched_percussion_instrument

JOA

[Geir]

This is really quite interessting !

the wikipedia article summed up my understanding of it quite well. But I also thought that most drums don't have a steady basic pitch. At least to my ears they start at a higher pitch and decays down to what may be the base pitch. As this decay in tone is parralelled with a decay in volume it sometimes seems like the base pitch never is reached (or at least is quite inaudible in a mix with other instruments). This effect probably depends on how the drums are tuned. A tighter skin will probably reach a base pitch faster than a more loosely tuned skin.

Does this make sense?

[64Guitars]

Drums can be tuned?! Really? (I just checked the date and it's not April 1st...!).

I had no idea!

I just thought you could change how taut they are for the style / sound you want.

Nope... tuning drums still doesn't compute. I'm going off to think about something easier to comprehend now... ha ha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_1cVODYas



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1QsoDxlgLE

"Scarborough Fair" / "Greensleeves"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz_MmBSAb5U

"I Got Rhythm"

[64Guitars]

http://www.wembleydrumcentre.com/Catalogue/Drum-Centre/Drum-Accessories/Tuning-Tools/Drum-Dial-Precision-Drum-Tuner-ADD?gclid=CMbbr6_09LcCFc3HtAodhQcA3Q

Yeah, I've seen those tension gauges before. But, as far as I know, there's no standard tension for each drum that you're supposed to tune to. A drummer might find a tuning he likes through experimentation, then use the gauge to measure the tension of each drum so that he can restore that exact tuning if his drums go out of tune or he replaces a drum head. But there's no standard that he tunes to in the first place. It's just whatever sounds good to him, and it bears no relationship to the standard tuning of any other instruments in the band. Anyway, I don't think most drummers use a tension gauge or any other tuning aid or reference. They just tighten or loosen the tension rods until they find a sound they like through experimentation. They have no idea what the actual pitch is.

But there's an app for that.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnOeLSqbmhg

Since this app tells you the exact frequency of a drum, it should be possible to tune a large drum kit to a series of notes one semitone apart and play a melody on them.

[64Guitars]

This might explain why drums doesn't sound out of pitch when properly tuned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpitched_percussion_instrument

Great article. Thanks, Jarle. It does help a lot, though much of it's still a mystery. The main thing I got out of the article is that the overtones of drums are mostly inharmonic. Melodic instruments such as guitars, pianos, woodwinds, etc. produce overtones that are multiples of the fundamental frequency. But the overtones of drums and cymbals tend to have no mathematical relationship to the fundamental frequency and, I suppose, tend to mask it to some degree so we don't discern a specific pitch.

But the videos above show that drums do have pitch and recognizable melodies can be played on them. So, wouldn't they sound better if they were tuned and played relative to the other instruments in the band and to the key of the song? For example, what if you had a large drum kit with 24 drums tuned a semitone apart (2 octaves). When the band is playing in the key of B major, for example, you could play only the drums that correspond to the notes in the B major scale. When the band plays a song in G minor, you'd play a different selection of drums that corresponds to the notes in the G minor scale. It seems like this should sound better than just playing a random selection of the available drums, many of which represent notes that are not in the key that the band is playing in.

[64Guitars]

This is really quite interessting !

the wikipedia article summed up my understanding of it quite well. But I also thought that most drums don't have a steady basic pitch. At least to my ears they start at a higher pitch and decays down to what may be the base pitch. As this decay in tone is parralelled with a decay in volume it sometimes seems like the base pitch never is reached (or at least is quite inaudible in a mix with other instruments). This effect probably depends on how the drums are tuned. A tighter skin will probably reach a base pitch faster than a more loosely tuned skin.

Does this make sense?

Yes, I understand what you're saying. A drum note varies in pitch throughout it's duration, usually descending in pitch, I think. But I think we judge its overall pitch based on where it starts in the attack part of the envelope. You could compare this to playing an open E string on your guitar and depressing the whammy bar to lower the pitch gradually. I think we still perceive the note as an E, even though the pitch changes throughout its duration. It certainly sounds different than playing the A string and pressing the whammy bar and we can detect the interval distance between the E and the A, despite the effect of the whammy bar. So, although the pitch of a drum is not constant, it's still recognizable to some degree and we can detect the intervals between different drums.

Perhaps the answer to why drum tuning is not critical relative to other instruments is a combination of several things - varying pitch, inharmonic overtones, short duration, and probably a few other factors. But I can't help wondering if a large drum set tuned to concert pitch and played according to the key of the song might sound better than a drum set that's not tuned to concert pitch and is not played according to the key of the song. It would be an interesting experiment to try it.