The Cranky Drummer

In spite of having been so rapturously in love with drums since the age of eight, compared with many drummers who have reached my (much more advanced) current age I've actually owned relatively little drum equipment throughout my life. This post is Part 1 in a multi-part rundown of it all. First drumset (1965): E.W. Kent (black-diamond pearl wrap) Configuration: Bass drum, tom-tom, snare drum • 20” x 14” bass drum, 12” x 8” small tom, 14” x 5½” snare drum • Various entry-level hardware • 15” Paiste Standard crash cymbal, 13” Italian (no brand name) crash cymbal, 14” Zyn hi-hat cymbals After taking lessons for a year and practicing a couple of hours every day on my Pearl MIJ snare drum and humidor-lid cymbal (see Starting To Play ), when I was 13 I used my bar-mitzvah gift money ($150!) to purchase my first drumset used from my friend Terry, who had switched from playing drums to playing vibes. It included entry-level (read: cheap) hardware and an old fibre trap case th

When I was a teenager, I lusted after the unattainable drum (a Rogers wood-shelled Dyna-Sonic snare drum) as much as I ever lusted after any pretty girl in school. When I realized that I wouldn’t be able to afford a Dyna-Sonic my heart ached just as much as it did when Linda Tussey shot me down during my senior year at Grant High. At least a Dyna-Sonic never said to me “But I only like you as a friend”. Instead, the Dyna’s kiss-off line (which my mind always heard in Mae West's voice) was “Sure you can have me, big boy, but it’ll cost you plenty”, and that was just as heartbreaking for me at the time. But unlike your high-school crushes, when you’re much older and are in a position to spend your money as you wish, you can go out and get yourself that drum you lusted after when you were just a lad. And so, when Rogers reissued* this drum in 2019 I just had to see what all the hype was about. I gave a Dyna-Sonic snare a side-by-side test against my then-current snare drum, and tu

The drumset or drumkit   (sometimes called a  trap set )  is made up of a number of individual drums and cymbals (and occasionally additional instruments). The number of different drumset configurations is infinite — the drumset is unique among acoustical musical instruments in that each player chooses which drums and other instruments their drumset will include, what size each included element will be, the physical arrangement of all the elements and how each drum will be tuned. At their core, just about all drumsets consist of: • A  bass drum , a large drum that produces a very deep and powerful tone the drummer uses to define the music’s pulse. In a drumset the bass drum is played with a foot using a mechanical pedal. (In fact, the invention of the first practical bass drum pedal in Chicago in 1909 is what allowed both the drumset and how it is played to evolve and keep pace with the evolution of popular music over the 110 or so years that the drumset has existed.) Drumset bass d