: : : Lessons : : Conceiving your drum set : Set 5 : Big band, hard rock

• Description:
• • 1: Hi-hat 14” or 15''
  • 2 : Crash 18''
  • 3 : Splash 8''
  • 4 : Ride 22''
  • 5: Crash-ride 20''
• • a: Snare drum 14 x 5 or 6.5''
  • b: Suspended tom 12'' or 13''
  • c: Piccolo floor tom 14'' or 15''
  • d: Floor tom 16'' or 18''
  • e: Bass Drum 24'' or 26''
• • I: Medium cowbell

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The particularity of this set, except the slight oversizing of each instrument (which gives a powerful, low and resonant connotation) is a slight increase in the quantity and variety of instruments (addition of one splash and one cowbell, in fact).

The setup is very different because it shifts two toms on the right (two floor toms) to favor a very comfortable position of the ride, close to the snare drum. This is a choice that goes against the "descent of toms" of rock type (in continuous single stroke roll) and favors the joint playing of the ride with the snare, which is very bebop.

So it's not surprising that we find this type of set for jazz big bands or loving decibels bands (hard rock).

Hence, the firsts to use it were big band drummers of the 1940s: Gene Krupa, Cozy Cole, "Big" Sid Catlett, Ray Bauduc, Buddy Rich and Louie Bellson (but with two bass drums and pedals, a crash instead of a splash on the left of the hi-hat and at the end of his life a Chinese under the ride on the right, two rototoms above floor toms and two other suspended high toms (10” and 8”) on the left of hi-hat) who used it until the end of their lives, even integrating new playing styles: latin-jazz, fusion, etc. (like Buddy Rich). More recently (1990), drummers like Brian Blade (Joshua Redman) and Bill Stewart (Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker) have adopted a similar set .

Note that at the time, the tom fastener on bass drum shell didn't exist, which may partly explain the disconnexion between the toms.

In hard rock style, we can name John Bonham (Led Zeppelin, without splash and sometimes with two classical timpani on the left of the hi-hat and a “tam-tam” (large flat Chinese gong) suspended vertically in his back), Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix, without splash), in the 1960-70s, and more recently (1990's) Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers, with a bigger splash (10") placed on the left of the high-hat and the addition of a radiant pierced 21" explosive china cymbal designed especially for him (in 2010: "Holy" china) on the extreme right), who are also tall men, which may also justify the oversized elements of their drumsets (which are anyway amplified with microphones).

Note finally the strong contrast between the tiny splash and the other instruments, to create surprising effects or even comic (Buddy Rich was a real "clown" on stage sometimes, mimicking kicks with their hands, playing rolls with one stick against another, juggling with sticks, muting the splash with a hand, etc., in the European tradition of "one-man band" of fair or circus).

Marc De Douvan, march 2006, augmentation and translation in English: march 2015.