Drum Tuning Pearl Drums（鼓调优珍珠鼓）.pdf

Drum Tuning by Gene Okamoto, Pearl Corporation Tuning: No Right or Wrong When it comes to tuning drums, theres no right or wrong. If you take 10 drummers and ask them how they tune their drums, youll get 10 different answers. For someone starting out, this can be confusing and contradictory. So to make things easier (ha, after you see all the verbiage below youll say, If he thinks this is easy, hes nuts!), I will attempt to describe how I tune drums. Dont laugh. Tuning in Opposites Years ago a drummer friend, named George Rutter, and I were talking he mentioned tuning in opposites. The proverbial light bulb went on in my head and the first chance I got, I tried it on my drums. Eureka, it worked! For the better part of my drumming career, Ive used this method to tune drums with great success. This is how. Step 1 (optional) Start with a new head or take the existing one off your drum. With your thumbs, squash the rounded part of the head into itself all the way around. Do this with batter heads only, not snare heads. I dont quite understand why this works, but especially on two-ply heads, this makes them sound better. Step 2 Put the head on your drum and finger tighten the tension rods. Step 3 Using a criss-cross pattern (like the one shown at right), turn each tension rod 1/2 turn until the wrinkles are taken out of the head. Tighten the rods until a tone is produced. Step 4 To seat the head, simply press the center with the palm of your hand like giving CPR. Seating the head pulls the flesh hoop (the ring around the heads) into the channels of the rims and helps the head conform to the shape of the bearing edges of the drums. When you seat the head, youll sometimes hear a cracking sound…dont be alarmed, this is normal. After you seat the head, youll probably notice that the pitch of the head is now lower. This