Here are just a few tips and techniques to help you get the most out of any drum circle you attend!
Basic Drum Techniques
Always striving to provide the best professional and fun Drumming Circle Experience sometimes means being proactive! Here are just some basic techniques that will help you to practice and keep you from possibility of hurting yourself when playing a drum in a drum circle.
Relax and Stretch
Before playing the drums, make sure you completely relax. Take your hands and gently massage them. Stretch your fingers out and flex them back. Get yourself calm and your hands nimble. This is critical to ensure the best tone and time!
Bass
Keeping your fingers together, move the palm of your hands just off of the center of the drum. Hover your hands about one inch from the drum head. Raise your arm, and strike the drum with just the palm of your hand keeping your fingers slightly raised and flexed. You should hear a very deep “boom”. FYI, the right hand sound is called “Gun (goon)” and the left side is “Dun (doon)”.
Tone
Still keeping your fingers together, move your hands to where the first set of knuckles from the palm of your hand line up with the rim of the drum. Again, keep your hands about one inch from the drum. Raise your arm, and strike the drum near the rim. The right hand sound is called “Go” and the left side is “Do” (Doe). Make sure that you keep your thumbs back… don’t let your thumbs hit the side of the drum. Again, think loose!
Slap
Loosely spread your fingers apart in the same position as the “Tone”. Again, keep your hands off the drum, and raise your arm one at a time. With a whipping motion, strike the head with your loose fingers toward the end of the drum. The right hand sound is called “Pa” and the left side is “Ta.” Make sure that you keep your thumbs back… don’t let your thumbs hit the side of the drum. Again, think loose! The slap is quite a difficult technique to master, but it is VERY expressive!
The Rules
Play On The Drum is dedicated to providing the best professional and fun Drumming Circle Experience available in Chicago’s Southland. Do do so, however, there are a few things we always ask of each participant:
- Please remove all rings
- Respect others
- Shake off your worries-there are no mistakes
- Listen. Watch. Feel. “Be!”
- Don’t ever give up!
- Please do not remove any instruments that aren’t yours from the circle. Make sure your own instrument is well marked.
- Remember, you are great and a born drummer!
- HAVE FUN!