How to play the bass drum properly

It's harder than you might think!

Learn proper bass drum technique from Interlochen Center for the Arts' Director of Percussion Keith Aleo, including the best gear to use and specific playing techniques. Continue your studies by downloading a bass drum étude!

Hi, my name is Keith Aleo and I am Director of Percussion at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. I'm here to talk to you about some of the percussion instruments that you might not be learning about in lessons or in your band program. And those instruments I call the complementary percussion instruments because they complement the rest of the percussion section. Those instruments are triangle, cymbals, bass drum, and tambourine. Right now, I'm going to talk about bass drum, and some of the things that are challenging for young students—high school and even college age.

Bass drum equipment

The first thing is the gear. Here, I have a general bass drum beater. This is a Vic Firth Tom Gauger TG01. Then, I have a pair of beaters that are rollers, which I roll with or play articulate notes or faster passages with. And then I suggest getting TG21 mallets which are very hard wood on one end and chamois on the other wood and chamois. You can flip it over.

Another important gear for the bass drum is a stand to put the mallets on. When we were in high school, we just put the mallet on the stand, and sometimes the mallets would fall off the stand.

In bass drum playing, beside the mallets and the drum, the most important piece of equipment is a black towel. In fact, I suggest two. One black towel for the stand with the mallets, and another black towel on top of the drum to help with muffling.

Another piece of gear is a stand that you can rest your foot on to help muffle the bass drum. It seems that every music program has pieces of hardware that have lost the other parts, and you don't know what to do with them. And a lot of people say, "Well, you just throw them away." Actually you can use them. So I'm going to take the bottom of a snare drum stand, and I'm going to put it next to my bass drum. And if I have to muffle the bass drum, I'm simply going to put my foot on the stand. Now, I can bring my leg to the drum and muffle.

Playing the bass drum

So we talked about what gear to have, what mallets to have, black towels, trap stand, and the base of a snare drum stand to put your foot on. Now, let's talk about how to play the drum. The bass drum to me is almost a second conductor in marches or anytime there's a rhythmic element. And I think the biggest challenge with bass drum is managing the sustain. The instrument sustains, and how you manage that sustain and control gives you the opportunity to be that second conductor.

So I'm going to take my general mallet, and I'm going to play the drum. And I want you to notice three different sounds. Here's the center of the drum. Now, I'm going to play slightly off center. Now, I'm going to play near the edge of the drum. I don't know if you can hear it, but the center of the drum gives the strongest punch, where slightly off center gives a bit more sustain and not as much front to the sound, and the edge of the drum produces a more thin and resonant sound. So none of these sounds are right or wrong; it's just what you're looking for. And we're going to talk about that when I play the etude—what part of the drum I'm going to play on. Do I want a punchy sound? Do I want a more resonant sound? Do I want a thinner, warmer sound?

Managing the muffle, managing the sustain, is done either with your leg, or my second black towel, or both. So you can just kind of figure this out, how many different sounds can get. If I want a very dry sound with a lot of punch, I'm going to play in the center of the drum and mute it a lot. If I want more sustain, I'm going to play off center. Now I'm still muting it. If I want less muffle, I'm going to take my leg off of the drum. So any combination of this type of muffling and placement on the head is basically giving you an opportunity to be a creative percussionist. What kind of sound do you want?

Now we've talked about that, let's talk about rolls, or faster notes that you can't execute with one hand. Rolls are accomplished by starting the roll on the edges. And you don't have to roll fast. Bass drums you can roll slow. As I increase my volume, I'm going to move to the center. And if you noticed, I didn't muffle anything at all. I let it sustain. If I wanted some more articulate passages, I might go to the center of the drum and mute the drum with my leg. These very hard mallets, chamois and wood as I mentioned, you can use for even more dry and more articulate sounds.

Practicing the bass drum

Now we've talked about what gear to have. We've talked about the playing techniques. Now, what do you practice? And once again I go to my 10 notes. Can I make a sound that is exactly the same, with one mallet and the drum? 10 whole notes. So I'm just going to play four, and I'm going to play this maybe mezzo piano, and I'm gonna look to make the exact same sound.

So again I'll let you be the judge. Did I get it exactly right? Exactly? It's harder than it looks. I will go ahead now and play the bass drum etude. There's two: the one bass drum etude, and then an advanced etude. Right now, I'm going to play the more beginning etude. If you notice, I'm using my muffler for the short notes, and I'm going to let the drum ring for the longer notes. And if you noticed, I used the center of the head and I use slightly off center for different tones. Center is more articulate, off-center is more resonant.

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