 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I'm joined by my friend Jeff Davenport to teach us about the history of drum tuning Jeff welcome to the show Hi there Bart and thank you very much for inviting me on the show. It's a real pleasure and We're across the ocean. I'm over in the UK. Yes, and Yeah, and it's a pleasure to be here and be part of the drum history podcast. Oh, this is great I've really enjoyed. I mean, we've gotten we've gotten to know each other over the last couple weeks. Um, I really enjoyed Lockdown man, we're in lockdown. I've really enjoyed watching your you have a video series on YouTube or a channel called drum Tuning workshops and you're on Instagram. We can chat about that all at the end But you do some really cool stuff And I know that you work with Rob Cook and you you do tuning Seminars, I guess you would call it at the Chicago show. Yeah, yeah historically So I'm excited to learn the history of this and one I just keep having the thought in my mind that sometimes I feel like Like I almost equate it to like learning to drive where when you first started to drive You're like you're constantly checking the speedometer. You're constantly checking your mirrors You're checking gas. What what it like everything is so like but then the more you do it You're just like you're just doing things without even thinking and I'm sure that's how you get to with a level of Tuning where you're just bam, bam, bam. Okay, sounds good. And yeah, the musical equivalent of that is knowing your instrument and and it always used to amaze me when I was teaching drums, I taught drums for a bit and When I was teaching I said to the you know, the pupil at first meeting as they always have any lessons on tuning Never had any lessons on tuning and they've been having lessons for four years five years And they've never even thought about how to drive the car And I guess exactly I guess it's important I mean we've got to keep it in perspective, you know, and you've got to play your drums You've got to perform you've got to play to the music And so I always make sure that the tuning and the setting up, you know Does come after you know learning a few grooves and playing along to stuff But knowing your instruments, so you know if you're a guitarist you tune up before you have your lesson If you're a clarinet player, you set the read if you're a saxophonist, you'll do the same and so on and so forth and timpani players Obviously have to find the note of the drum that they're going to to play for the performance piece and and so the drum kit we we're like We're last in the pile really Because we've got the most complex like you say going back to the variables We've got the most complex instrument you could ever imagine and we have this situation where we can't see what we're doing You know, I always say if there was a drum head which could change color with tension We'd be you know, we'd be miles ahead, but we don't have that. I can't see what we're doing so we have to resort to our hands and we have to resort to our eyes and our ears and And and kind of piece it together and you know teaching tuning is about sitting around a table in a pub or a campfire or whatever it's about You know, it's verbatim. It's you talk about it and you demonstrate it and it's not, you know It's not something really that can be done very accurately Through the medium of the computer, but we now have a it's got much better. It's got much better Yeah, more knowledge kicking about well, I think knowledge is what kind of gets rid of that tabooness so why don't you drop some knowledge on people and perfect segue and and teach everyone Really about the history of tuning because I'm fascinated by it. I know there's guts involved and I'm glad it's been a period of time where I've had time to think about it because I think we said this right at the beginning when we first talked that the history of tuning is the history of the drum And and I have to be really careful here because there are many many Hundreds of people who are better at describing the history of the drum than me I mean, I'm a demonstrator and we are all performers and and Looking back over Pretty much the history of human beings the drum being central to Gatherings central to communities central to people, you know, just existing on this earth I suddenly realized. Oh my goodness. Am I qualified for this? But I just thought well, you know, let's just pick out a few things and look at You know drums being communication equipment and how do we make them? And so you know, you know, I've used I tell you how I'll just quickly tell you my sources Because I think they're really important You know points of of information for everybody to kind of you know, throw everything in the pot So there's a book by James Blades called percussion instruments and their history Now James Blades was a eminent historian, but more importantly a professional orchestral percussionist and He did hundreds and hundreds of British Museum trips trips to the British Museum to find out about Stuff and his book is it's that well, I bought it in lockdown because the first time I've been able to find it under £100 this book. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those When you go to Bell percussion in London and they're the premium percussion hire place for London orchestras and the music in London This book is on their desk and it's for very good reason What's in there is it's just unbelievable So that's a really good book to look for James Blades and all of his books actually the Vienna Symphony Library That's a fantastic resource not only for you know music and all sorts of kind of interesting history of Orchestral instruments, but more importantly it gives you a little bit of insight into the how the orchestra used drums The British Museum has a website the Royal Collection will look at the Royal Collection in a minute minute because it has one of the earliest kind of Single-point tuning mechanisms i.e. one dial one knob many tones and a system for you know recording those tones There's a lot of history in timpani And there's a lot of history in cattle drums and before that they were called nakers They were put on horses and before they were put on horses They were drums were held by people and somebody else played them So the poor guy was carrying drums down the road. Oh god, but when you really go Yeah, when you really go back you're looking at tribal drums and you're looking at Skins held on pegs dried in the sun. Yeah, and played over You know played over pits And then you're kind of you know, we can go right back to You know skin stretcher over shells tortoises Turtle shells shells Yeah, yeah, we're you know, we really did use exactly what was to hand You know for communicating passion and and a feeling, you know and we also had After that pretty much when we started to make clay you know and for us and Cookery dishes and things like that. We had clay clay pots So funny I've actually found an old drum in the shed which was exactly this It's it's a clay pot with a with a stretch skin And the skin is the skin is made wet and then it's put on the clay pot and then it's dried and sometimes Then you know these are tacked in the skins and sometimes they're they're pulled on little bits of string or rope and Hmm, you know and they're and they're kind of one hit wonders, you know, you've got very little control over them Because that was my that's my question with this is as so first off what year what Century was the turtle stuff? Well, we're talking kind of You know birth of man, you know, okay, that's what I figured. That's yeah, we're talking 37,000 40,000 years ago Okay, yeah Ice age they found drums, you know from the ice age, you know Which are which are effectively, you know skins over over animal shells Man and I think it's pretty people probably know this there's a it comes up in a lot of episodes where drums were obviously used as a Form of communication To tell people something. Yeah, and just having a good time. They love, you know festivals parties a celebration somebody's birthday of birth of a offspring Yeah, get the instruments out get the drums going so would you say then the first kind of tension? Would be the the stretching and drying in the Sun kind of thing to let it yeah, exactly not yet Like you said not a lot of control there. Yeah zero control almost apart from, you know, obviously atmospheric conditions Which send it's like our own skin We tend to relax in the Sun we tend to get quite Uptight as humans and when it gets a bit colder and it's all to do definitely It's all to do with the atmospheric conditions, but we're really we're really tied down by what's recorded in History, we're really tied down by what is written and what is You know documented so You know, so we don't it's a bit like, you know, I see people talking about Zildjian symbols or 1623. Where are these 1623 symbols? I want to see them and it's like Yeah, they don't really exist, you know, it's you know, they're about the place and you know zildjian was a company It was making stuff, but you know, ultimately a lot of these things are consumables They come and they go so we're down to what's been saved and what's been recorded. So I did a quick look at screws and There's a lovely website called bolt science.com bolt science.com is a guy in the UK and he's an expert on screw threads I thought it was fantastic the pitch and what have you and you know, and he talks about 400 BC Arquitas of Tarantum Was a was pretty much the founder of mechanics and he was a contemporary of Plato and He's credited often with you know, the kind of invention of the screw In oil presses and juice presses, you know to get some olive oil and make wine And you know, you're looking at these kind of inventions, which kind of trigger obviously Well, the whole thing, you know, because a lot of mechanics is tied to industrial revolution and the need for Often you'll find, you know, mechanical invention in in war items and you know things to do with them, you know military So it's quite nice to find oil presses and juice presses and then obviously water, you know bringing water along and Because well, you know screw the screw thread is is is central to our understanding today of it And then I've obviously got Archimedes and People talk about him being you know the founder, but he was actually just the first person that was kind of credited in history, you know From from for hundreds of years. He was kind of oh Archimedes was the guy. He was to 88 BC to 212 BC And so he's he's there as well, but we don't really see Screws, you know appearing I've got a few notes here. There was In 1405 as a fellow called Conrad Kaiser who wrote a book called Belly Fortis and it's a study of Instruments of war. I can't wait to get this book. It's gonna be such a grim read But he was you know, he was looking at you know envisaged the crank on the screw You know, he drew the crank so something at the end to kind of turn the screw and that was 40 of tension I mean, that's it's just kind of putting in our perspective as the screw and obviously in everything kind of it just is It embodies the ability to tighten things right just simplify it. Yeah, and and for a drum You know what people wanted was uniformity across the drum. Yes, that was their main game was to get this Drumhead tension to a point where we could really you know, take it to war and it would sound impressive and and scary and Yeah, exactly Then then, you know, the screw thread was gonna help us do this because other than that We were having to pull down on ropes on a dried skin and You know and that as we know the skin can break You can snap you can kind of you know shatter or whatever So this was gonna be a great invention and funny enough as soon as you see that screw Arrive in kind of written history You see pictures as well to go along with it So 1514 is the earliest one I can find and it's a picture Hans Bergmeier the elder I Suggest now bother you add the elder to your name because I think that would just I think I will Bart van der Zee the elder I think that would sound great. I'll say I'm your host Bart van der Zee the elder Yeah, I think that'd be great. Anyway, he did a picture of musical instruments Where he paints a kettle drum? timpani With a single point Tension screws all around the edge. So that's 1514. Yeah, 50. Yeah, I That's James Blades writes about him and that's a that's a really great image and then we also have Around the same time and I think he might have been influenced by Leonardo da Vinci also in visiging What does he write he writes pretty much a single a drum with cogs working by wheels and springs And I think that's a and he actually draws it as a plate Well, there's a drum with again screws screws on them. Oh, I can't find it I can't I can't see it. Maybe somebody's got it, but he also envisages. This is great. This is brilliant He also visits a drum with a lever that That changes the tension on the drum, which we have now which people attempted in like the 30s. I think I mean, that's Yeah, and obviously the Arbiter auto tune is a yes is just a collar which which brings brings the head Tensions the head sideways and we're doing it really does the great drums, but they they kind of have choked sound But you know back then we're talking 15th century people were looking for a one-hit snap fit, you know Get it sorted still are yeah, I know Single a single quick fix to tuning drums They're really they were busting back then to make it easy And I think that's brilliant I think that's you know because when you look at the questions on forums and the questions I get at tuning help desk workshops, they are identical to the questions These guys would have had back in the 16th century 15th century exactly the same And when I write all the questions down on a on a sheet, I then show people the sheet from previous gig and And they are exactly the same everybody's asking the same question. Everyone's got the same question. Wow And that that's funny. I've done probably you know when I'm working for EMD I was probably doing probably about 20 of these and I've got I've saved the sheets and they're all the same question every every show So throughout history, we've had the same problems, which is great because we're all in this together And so next the next picture I found was of Geico Pretorius and The Vienna Symphony Library picks up on this actually And he wrote a book of musical instruments called the Cintagma musical and this is probably the only time you'll ever hear me speak Latin And it's probably the only time that Latin will be uttered on this show So let's let's enjoy the moment, but he had a basket pictures Kettle drums with single-point tensions all around the drum and he also draws a key Wow a tuning key now, I've got we'll talk about keys I've got a big big thing about keys and that I think most of them are completely Inadequate for doing the job that we've got to do with them But that's my own that's my own personal kind of Beef But he Pretorius wrote three volumes of books between 1640 and 1620 And he even pictured a rope drum With a screw strainer so a snare strainer, which is in a screw type So you twist it and it and it tensions the snare wise And that was on a soldier's drum. They call it a lance quenet drum And because all of this time what you're was when was that so that's between well He pictured this drum between 1640 and 1620 He died in sickness. He died in 1621 and he was a composer music theorist So that's really interesting, you know, I mean we were looking to make things simple back then, you know And I think the 16th century is really interesting in the sense that what you also have happening Is you had You know as a sudden boost of A demand, you know, if you can imagine before that you're looking at ceremony and It was a lot of it was tribal. We got we got society really kind of Shaping up to what we know it today. So you how now have in the 16th century, you know, royal musicians happening you have this, you know the gauge of your country was You know the prowess of your country was gauged on your if you had kind of musicians Sure, and if they had access to, you know, and these latest things called timpani and Trumpets and you know, they're expensive. They were a sign of wealth So you suddenly started to see well, I guess they've always been around but here you suddenly start to see, you know improvements in instruments linked to The guilds effective. I'm talking about the guilds which were, you know, and royal You know groups of musicians and here we suddenly pick up You know the beatings of drums And this, you know, what how you flourish with a trumpet at the end of a Yeah, sure. And and you suddenly got this little little little closed shop also happening secret society of sorts if you like of These musicians being very protective about their knowledge Because when you look at what's written down About how you tune drums or even how you play drums is very little and I'll give a quick shout out here We've never talked But a guy called Ed rifle Toronto Orchestra wrote a fantastic treatise on the study of written Music for timpani and it's a brilliant read and it goes back to Altenberg's book in 1795 and This this 1795 book was pretty much the first time you saw it, you know a timpani player writing for timpani players You know in terms of drum history books. I don't have a copy I have 200, you know different method and tutors in the garage, but I don't have that one And the whole thing is linked, you know, and while you've got the guilds happening Happening in the royal courts within, you know, Europe and England You've also got the weights. W. A. I. T. S. You've got groups of musicians here They are all coming together and playing and they'll celebrate these are kind of your community musicians And you so you got this little world here happening, which is, you know, where you might see a Tambour being played In one hand and a whistle being played in the other One-handed this is kind of early music And you might find surnames associated with people who played drums So, you know, your surname might come out, you know might be appropriate the name and Yeah, so you've got you got these two groups of people coming along Which drive the the need for Audibility with drums. So you've you've got quite a lot happening Musically and uniformity like you said, I mean obviously you want these groups of people to all sound similar and I Heard I did an episode which will be out by the time this episode is released But it's on the history of US military drumming And I talked to his name's Patrick Jones and he said that George Washington Know noted that he said the band sounds awful. We need to get better trained Musicians, yeah, because it makes everyone it makes your country look bad to have guys where the drums sound bad Everything's just kind of would you know not good that's that ties into the royal musicians and that their job was pretty Pretty important to you know, make the whole thing look damn fine for dignitaries and and what have you and I think What what where those guys ended up is in orchestras? Because what we have now is we have the birth of composition we have You know, suddenly we've got more people on this planet, you know, the societies are growing And we have the need for music and performance and suddenly we see the birth of the orchestra as we know it And I think that's another driver for tuning, you know Gadgets and the need for tension and to be able to change it and get it back And yeah, yeah, so you'll see, you know late 17th century You'll suddenly see orchestras happening and you'll see You'll see these musicians heading to orchestras and you know, and suddenly the need for you know good sounds But the weights they go back to 13th century the groups of Local musicians go way back, you know 1272 is the earliest record. I have here in Holland of they were called the Alta cappella and in France they were called the Hort music And Italy they were called the Alta musical and these are groups of musicians that perform for, you know festivals and arrival of you know parties weddings, you know, and they're real drivers, you know, they're professional musicians These these weights when fun enough These groups of musicians were banned in the UK in 1835 with the Municipal Corporation Act They were cleared out. Yeah, because it was just I was all cronyism Basically, you could never join these bands or you can you can never get anywhere in society because it was all sewn up, you know sure, yeah 1835 was a big change in the UK Hmm for for that and funny enough around then so it's interesting I mean, we've got orchestras between kind of the late 17th, but it's isn't until like the mid 19th century like 1837 that I pick up my next story I can't find much, you know tuning kind of history between those points other than you know, you've got you've got kettle Drums which are chord tension So these are you know, they there might be some advancements in terms of pulling a counter hoop Down rather than just the head. So the skin is fixed to a hoop and then the hoop is pulled because I This is really interesting and this could almost be a Subject of a show in itself, but which is a fella called Cornelius Ward who arrives, you know early 1800s as a person he's an inventor and a manufacturer and He pretty much patents a Screw tuning device for a drum So this is 1837 So this is just really after the you know, the industrial revolution happened in in England and then across in Belgium and then spread eventually to America And this is where you know modern manufacturing techniques of manipulating metal Become, you know smaller we can actually get things made smaller, you know, if you Archimedes screw back in the day was a huge great wooden thing But now we can turn and work metal and I think the history of tuning is definitely tied to well, it's absolutely tied to cost-effectivity usability And all almost always in in mind of a musical outcome. How do we use this musically? but Cornelius Ward brilliant and Somebody last month has one of his drums And he's on the vintage drum forum. I can't wait to make contact with him But one of these drums has turned up in the States And it's basically a snare drum with a series of J hooks The tension head so the bottom head is was where the J is And the hook comes all the way to the top and lo and behold there is a wing bolt And there's four of them on this drum and what's missing off the drum is what's in Cornelius is patent Which is a series of chords and and cogs and wheels which allow the head to be tensioned via a central Kind of cog which you turn with your hand, which will set the pitch This is 1837 it's unbelievable. Yeah, that's advanced. Yeah, so and he applied this to Kettle drums as well eventually You can see it on the Royal Collection the Royal Collection in one of the the Royal Balls Supper Room in Buckingham Palace in London Is one of Cornelius's kettle drum and you can see it just type in Royal Collection type in Cornelius Ward Great odd name And lo and behold, there's this drum Fantastic, so he describes four things in there in the patent You know that it's about straining heads and also a quick release mechanism for you know changing heads So obviously you can just you know switch this This handle down and it releases all the tension Bizarrely he thought a hole in the middle of the head made a better sound So sad yeah even on a snare drum and even on a on a timpani just cut a small hole in the middle of the head So you know keep your sandwiches in there Like how big I mean well, I don't know. I don't know it's not written down and Also, he yeah, so he thought that but when you actually consider it when you put a hole in your bass drum It really does mute The tension across the head and I think that's yeah. Yeah, and say it's pretty normal there on the you know Yeah, the resonant head then then it is on the actual batter. Yeah. Yeah. I know this is weird It's on the batter. Yeah, like yeah losing a stick and but I always think of When I see a hole in a drum and front bass drum head I always think of Larry Mullins kit And Larry Mullin me too and I always think of that immense sound that he has on his bass drum Which is I think a p3 Rimo p3 as a batter and and a pinstripe on the front head with a hole cut out in the middle And the and the actual plies taped together And that's one of his kind of studio sounds but I digress But holes the other thing that Cornelius Ward came up with his pattern So straining heads hole in the middle then and also holes around the edge of the shell So near near the bearing edge so effectively vented Shell which which allowed the equilibrium of pressure between the outside the inside of the actual membrane the actual head itself To balance pressure Which I think is a really interesting thing because a lot of timpani's only had one hole at the bottom To allow that pressure to escape And this he thought great I'm just gonna put holes all around the edge and this is gonna sound great and he must have done some experiments So we're talking 1837 here, but we're talking 1830 1820 1820 is when you he must have put all this together Because the patent itself is very well written Very ahead of us. It's ahead of his time to be yeah thinking about that and understanding it. Yeah Oh, I think he's taken what Leonardo da Vinci Was putting together and he's taken that and run with it and you know extended it somewhat And the other thing in the pattern is rods and screws. So this is So this is the thing about tuning history is that it's only we can only really kind of go back to what was written down What's documented and of course? We're really stuck And With all the secret societies, you know the secrecy of of how things are done because that you know that secrecy back in the royal court And maybe within the weights that secrecy held on to your job. I mean we we are brilliant now It's sharing information And sharing, you know everything that we do because it does that ultimately make us look good It makes us feel good. Yeah And a lot of our we're not in that business of we're not and we're not in the business of making music people that share the most and You know, they tend not to be they tend to be like me. Let's end like salesman But then exactly your job relied on it, you know, there's no way I'm gonna tell you how to do a parallel go and find out yourself Yeah, that's your livelihood. I mean that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah And when you look at the books, the books only really started the books on on drumming only really started, you know last century They're very few of them before that I mean, I know books are expensive to make and to write and what have you but back then, you know But um, yeah and tuning, you know, you can't really describe it People do try and write it down. You see huge long answers on on on forums about how to tune a drum and it's like, oh my god It just takes forever Yeah, yeah, Cornelius a genius and I'm sure the subject of greater discovery because There's a guy who's just got one in the States and he's looking for information for it And I look forward to speaking but this 18 total 1851 picture of the kettle drum is awesome It's laced with with wire and cogs and wheels and single-point kind of tensioning But he also describes on that Patent I can't see it on the picture, but a revolving plate with With with notes written on, you know, you know a scale So this is, you know, auto-tune Timpani, yeah, so you can actually gauge it and know what you're Clicking at because I guess before I mean you're really just kind of a you're you're tuning by ear with all of this Even when you're sure, you know playing a turtle shell or whatever you're you're you're you're you're Using your ears to try and get a matched tone with other people and oh my goodness. Yeah, when you I really feel for the I mean we have it we have it hard but It's not life or death whether our drum is in tune or out of tune to be no Where it's a timpani guy a timpani player as we you know as we know They have to hit an a and they have to hit a b and I have to hit it with the right stick in the right place for the Right duration and they have to count 68 bars of You know rest beforehand before it comes in, you know, it's it's it's That's why it is life or death. Yeah, that's why I'm not a timpani player. I would have exactly Where's the No, I'd have lost interest ages ago and so they're very very panicky with their With their drum heads and with their and rightly so, you know, there's a separate like a remo There's a separate area where there's just some guys who are dedicated. Oh, yeah to to making. Yeah You know and it's and now I need to say we love timpani players and they're all great people and They're all friends of ours as well, but they have a hard job. Yeah. Yeah hats off hats off But yes another engine I was just gonna make another parallel here Actually because you know, my other my job my full-time job is working with theater practitioners You know, I'm actually I actually went to drama school to learn stage management when I left school and I've worked in theater and worked as a flyman and worked as a stage technician and the parallels between this mechanism on Cornelius's ward, you know Kettle drum is very similar to what you would find in the theater and also in sailing On ships, you know, so out of the industrial revolution, you know, we are taking our knowledge of rope work And you know field drums and we are we are now putting metal onto it making it and twisting it to our advantage, you know So I think there's many parallels in theater and especially on boats, you know, cogs and for wheels and pulleys Yeah Screw threads. I'll just tighten that a bottle screw threads bottle threads And I think there's some very very interesting kind of Similarities there. There's some interesting. I looked for Cornelius Ward in America and there's some at the Library of Congress They hold some flutes Early 19th century flutes of Cornelius Ward. So he extended his work to other instruments Man, what a what a guy, you know What a guy what a shout out. So, you know, we we've come a long way You know, you've come from turtle, you know upturned turtles with dried-on skins through You know drums in the 15th and 16th century with, you know, your rope and screw snare mechanisms and we're right up to the the end of the 19th century now and And we're moving into this modern age where suddenly Drums become so cheap and popular that we've got millions of people looking to try and manipulate them And one of them and none of them have a gig None of them have any musical outlet whatsoever. They you know, I mean when I was teaching the height of my teaching I was teaching if I worked a Saturday, I could be teaching up to a hundred pupils a week easily And I often thought what am I doing? I'm earning good money here What these guys are net off these guys and never even see a band they're never gonna be useful at school But they do want to know how to make their drums. So then we've got this demand, you know, that it's just peaked Probably peaked about five years ago There was so and actually I do remember this I was camping in Scotland in 1998 and the the mayor of Dundee Renamed one Christmas. He renamed the the town drum D Because so many they'd sold so many drum kits. There's so many people in drum in Dundee that year He decided to rename it, you know, so I think it peaked at the you know, you know, the 2000s 2005 what have you? Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. It's a resurgence of you know, like maybe in the 60s with Ringo and stuff There's there's those periods of people are lucky now that they're just doing it's just your standard tuning Tension rods in a you know hoop, but yeah, yeah And you know what? I there are there are people more qualified than me to to kind of go through that immediate history but what I did make a quick quick note on was some of the tech tuning kind of techniques so in yeah at the turn of centuries at 1897 there was a guy called Lyon. I don't know his first name, but he used two rings to sandwich Different different sized rings to sandwich the skin and if he moved one ring That would change pitch. So he patented that in 1897 and then there was a guy pair sappon Stewart system In 1899 they used an inner tube like on a bike. So again, we're taking you know Hit, you know, Michelin stuff You know our cars and bikes Modifications and we're applying them to drums and you basically you Hydraulically you could change the pitch of your drum. So they they patented that. I thought I was hilarious. I'd love to see that And then of course And then this is where I hand over to somebody else. We have the beautiful people at Ludwig Who you know in 1911 they patented a pedal operated and timpani Which must have been an improvement on anything else before and you know, so 1918 a pedal and a cable 1921 pedal with spring balance and it just goes on and that's when that's when suddenly I'm out. I'm out Because when you when you look at it is there's so many different kind of You know people, you know having a go, you know, even them You know film stars, you know coming up with Marlon Brando even painted some patented something, you know Everybody's having a go at changing the world, you know, you make a good point And I always like to preface that it's it's because I've gotten some on some episodes people said, oh you miss this and this No one knows everything and and this is almost just a discussion. It's as opposed to being the full Undisputed history of tuning. It's just a good discussion on it. But I want to read this I got actually very recently. I was talking with a guy named great friend of the show Joe Mechler or Joey boom and Before we were even talking we were talking about doing an episode about the different kinds of tension on drums because yeah, not even had a tune them but Obviously like you got the tack, you know tack on heads and all this stuff He gave me a cool list though and this is something we can look forward to people listening can hear this later But here's the it's that's there's rope tension wire truss single tension single point node slash single tension direct thread slash two plugs bloating inserts internal tune and And he we're trying to get together a different person to talk for each of those but wow so you you get the It's just but what I find interesting is that it's all trying to achieve the same thing is Exactly hit the damn drum This is it and I this I still maintain is you've got to have somebody on the other end of those sticks who can play the music and So whatever it does is kind of secondary to then the performance You know doing a lot of trade shows I was at Nam one year and a guy comes up to me and he goes I'm doing a I'm doing my PhD in in membranes And I'm like But I always think tuning for tuning sake is Spiral vortex of unhappiness. I really do think yeah when you're just tuning And somebody's it's tuning away, and then they turn around to me go does that sound right? I know I go to I have no clue You're not playing the music It's not in context. You're just tuning and you'll always be chasing your tail that way So I always push people away from that Because ultimately, you know What pays the money is the groove and the fact you you're a nice person and you're horrible and you fit in with Yeah, and so on and so forth. There's so many much more important things Yeah, absolutely like playing the drums. Yeah, but as a subject as a technical subject. It's very interesting Yeah, we can go back through the history and we can look at it But it's But yeah, the different types here's the thing actually that ties into 1952 Len Hunt ran a shop in the in London and My good friend Pete Woods Potters drums in older shot They they're a 19th century company still going that fix up a lot of the Royal and Military drums and look after them and Pete Woods is used to work for Len Hunt, but Len Hunt is Is down as inventing a screw mechanism Which adjusts a rope tensioning system? On on a military drum, which I think is brilliant. Yeah, so not only do we have all of those Things that you just suggested that we got we got hybrids Yeah, one one one system controls another system, you know You know because everybody's looking for I mean you've done though You've talked to her be made from rainbow about the plastic Yeah, I mean what when that came in when the successful head came in That made it so much more easier for people like Ludwig and Slingland and everybody to sell their drums to the emerging market People who just wanted to enjoy themselves playing drums. It became a recreation rather than a job And that's when you know the the difficulties with you know working this this these two heads You can't get it any more harder Honestly, you've got two membranes You've got a shell You know, how do we get this thing to work and that's and that's what I've done on the on the Instagram videos on on At drum tuning workshops because there is a there's a there's a video on there on how to tension a snare drum in one and a half minutes And that's yes, I feel like it's like an infomercial where it's like You know what I wasn't really rushing but you know I spent time as a this is interesting. I spent time as a sonar drum rep I was you know, not only was I interested in tuning I was really interested in sonar drums and the guys at the local shop Rattling drum in Derby said Jeff, yeah, you know so much about Sony you should become the rep and one day I did and I went to Germany I talked to Khan hot Karl how it's mental in the factory and And I talked told him what I've been doing with tuning and just you know showing people says well tuning is simple You just just do that. You just you know turn the screws and you have tension And I thought oh, yeah, I mean in theory I just thought well, it's my kind of guiding light in a sense. Yeah, keep it simple, you know Don't don't over complicate it and so the fine tune I've not done a video on fine tuning people talk about fine tuning And I've not really found a quick way yet to do it. I will do it But that what do you use? Do you use the um, let's say like the dial tune or anything like that? Hmm any of those systems that use like You know, I don't say science. They use yeah, they use There's a regal tip product Which is a talk talk measuring thing. There's yeah, obviously the drum dial and there's I tune this people That's what I meant. That's yeah. Yeah, yeah I've I don't personally use them But I I do as if you're working backstage You were drum tech. Yeah, you got the band playing snare drum fails You need to swap out snare to me need to get the main drum back up and running or blah, blah, blah That can be a very handy tool And I will always I always I won't diss them because they all have a function I think the drum dial is from the denim industries from from the fabric industry for measuring tension on fabric I think that's where that's come from. I believe cool and I Love it because people put me up against it and and they say right I Want you to make this head even and I'll do it and then we and then they put the dial on and they go Oh, you did that when I go. Well, yes Because man versus machine Well, because we're better than the machine because we go back to that 17 muscles in your in the palm of your hand and the 18 Muscles in your forearm and you have a brain and the brain can can measure Reverberation it can remember rooms. It can remember flaws. It can remember the drum It can remember the head it can put it all together These are the variables we were talking about and it can put it all together and Come out with an answer because it's a most immense computing machine But again, if you tune just with the dial you're you're painting by numbers You'll only have a these these are guys that You know that kind of need to throw away, you know use the Force Luke Yeah, no, it's like, you know, what is it John Henry versus the machine kind of thing and like all the folklore's but um Yeah, my my my art my overall theory on tuning is to is to spend as little time on it as possible and by the best equipment that you can and Obviously study it, you know have a day where you're kind of thinking about sounds but always use Music as a reference like like Phil Rudd on a CDC. How does he get sure or Bonham's 402 sound? And people do ask me to recreate sounds and I can do it I can tell what it's it's this head and it's this drum and it's at this tension Off we go I've been asked to recreate Steve Gad sound like a million times in workshops in the shops and Everybody's everybody's very disappointed Oh, yeah, because it's it's the way you play thing. It's exactly the tuning, you know And and that's a that's another little discovery But I try and you know keep it keep it happy keep it keep it positive have a goal You know, it's a ultimately We're just here to kind of share Information and nobody's right. Nobody's wrong all of that kind of stuff. There's otherwise you're just tie yourself up in knots, you know No, well, I get I fall into that and I need to just get out of it. I fall into that category of Don't touch it. It sounds good. You know, yeah, like if you touch my if you move it to like a tension rod I'll never be able to get it back Which I need to get away from well, look the more that you do it You'll see the activity that I bring to a drum You'll see that I do lots and lots of movements in a very short space of time Yeah, and I'm that kind of guy because you can always get it back It's a bit yeah, I the guys that just tippy-tappy and just do one movement every now and then Yeah, you're in trouble. You've got to kind of you got to pour yourself over it And and then and then you give yourself the confidence. It's all about muscle memory. You're training your hands I mean, I use my left hand My non-dominant hand to actually tune the best because it's for me It's the most sensitive it goes towards my right side of my brain. It's got my spatial awareness, you know Tied women with it and so use your left hand Make lots of movement make lots of adjustment. Remember what those adjustments are and I've got a tuning triangle Which I talk about which is sight sound and feel it's like the fire triangle, but you know for tuning and You put all three together. You have happy successful tuning, you know, you can see the head you can see the screws You can feel the head you can feel the screws and the counter hoop and then obviously You can play it and you can you can put all three things together. You'll you'll have happiness Take one away and you're compromised And so I think the the tuning triangle is one of my big things is It's also like head fit head fit is a three-way deal, you know, we've been fighting with You know tuning mechanisms for years, but they've all followed the same thing You've got it You've got a head which goes on the shell and then you've got the shell Which goes which has the fittings onto it and then the fittings go back to the counter hoop And you got this it goes round and each one has to be correct, you know, good head fit Is is very important and it helps the tuning feel and it helps the tuning mechanism again If you take one away, you know, you have a really tight fit on a head like you take the Gretsch drums Recently whether you know the classic fit has kind of fixed a Gretsch drum problem on a 14 Where the rap suddenly starts scraping against the inside of the aluminium hoop on the head You know, you've got an issue there and you've got to deal with it, you know, this game one of the many variables Let's just have someone else do it. Yeah This is why you have techs. Yeah, you know, this is why you have tech Nick Mason I don't think Nick Mason has ever touched one of his drums We did tell me that how do you get on with tuning this? Well, I don't really do it. I have somebody to do it for me That's funny. Yeah, he can he for guys like us who can't afford that Now as we kind of get close to the end here, I want to ask you you mentioned that time after time Everyone has the same questions. Yes, that's right Why don't you maybe give us the top five questions that everyone always asks? and you can kind of quickly give us a little answer and maybe you can kind of Answer some things that people are saying I should have written I should have my sheets with me But I can tell you I can tell you an easy one is sure. This is this is great. I love it How do I get a good bass drum sound? And it's like, oh no good bass drums. What's good, you know, yeah And but that's the kind of question you get so it's that's that's so the answer is Whatever fits the music but of obviously what I'll do is I'll then demonstrate Like three different tunings on a bass drum and then they let them decide which one's good Yeah, I always think about tuning. This is probably the answer that I always think about tuning being low medium or high very simply Low medium or high on a thin medium or thick drum head, which you can interpret as a diplomat ambassador or emperor Put those three together against those other three And practice and kind of get to grips with that idea and you'll lead yourself down The world of different drum heads and the worlds of different tunings used by you know, premium artists throughout the ages So you'll look at buddies snare drum and you'll go blind me. That's tight. That's a high tuning or you'll look at You know Bonham's tuning and you'll look, you know, you'll decide that it's another another tension But you know to keep it simple so low medium or high tension With a thin medium or thick head And you'll guide your way through it. Um, another good one is um, how do I stop snare buzz snare buzz is a great And unfortunately you can't You know, you look at I like snare. I mean, yeah, I love it kind of It ties your whole drum set together a little bit. You know what I mean? Like it Yeah, yeah, I mean classic a classic non snare buzz sound for a kit is um, danny carries and tool I mean that one hell of a dry sounding the latest recordings they've done is was like bonkers dry. It's brilliant Very, um, but equally I always talk about Roland and developing instruments Electronic instruments which actually dial snare buzz back in Um, so um, that's so funny. Yeah, so you can get I mean the old guys back in the you know In the 20s and you know the vaudeville and the silent movie days Hopefully enough. I still play silent movies with a pianist in london And they're great. They're great things to do and they used to use things like hank chiefs they used to Snip away some of the wires Um, oh, yeah tea towels all this stuff. I mean, yeah, yeah, you can tune away from the note Which is sympathetic, but you'll just be moving into another zone. So You're better off just trying to you know live with it So snare bars, um How do I get rid of pitch bend is another good one? My my drums are pitch. I've got a little video on pitch bend Which is great. This is funny because the drum that The drum that I use is just a basic yamaha one Um, and it showed pitch bend really really well. Um, I tried it on one of my high-end sonars And I couldn't get the drum to pitch bend It was like so it's the drum. Yeah, the drum would not let me do it. It was it was really strange I had obviously the the bat ahead at a high tension and the The resonance side at a low tension and it just wouldn't do it So I thought well that well, you know, I couldn't demonstrate it but pitch bend is a good one and I always have a a really hard time With a like floor toms without moon gel or anything on it floor times always kind of drive me a little nuts Like I can always I always have trouble with the floor tom. It's very flappy and I've got a video coming up Which is effectively about resonant heads and how we're all meant to be playing ambassador clears the ambassador the ambassador clear came out in the mid 60s and soon as that happened you had drum manufacturers Buying these things to put on their drums to sell them because it basically sold, you know, their real estate They could sell went up by a hundred percent You know, they're not selling what the inside of drums looked like as well as the outside Sure And um and for me it was the the biggest Oh, it's a real pain because we can manipulate the bottom head so easily either with you know God forbid tape, but you can you can for me. I tend to weight up my bottom heads um with a p3 or even an um an emperor clear Or or I've got one drum which you'd love you'd love this is emperor on the top and a p4 on the bottom And it sounds enormous, but I'm a single stroke kind of guy, you know I don't play doubles. I'm just like one hit wonder it suits me down to the ground, you know, um, but you know Check out the videos because they kind of um the twin ply top and bottom video I've got coming up is is just wonderful because it's it's kind of got that sound which is so easy to manipulate It's already it's pre-eq This is what you can do with the drum heads is you can Eq before it gets the microphone with the correct drum head. You you know, if you've just got a job in mind And you it's you and you don't mind where the tension's up Um, you can really eq your head um So I've got friends who've who've shown me, you know I've got a mate who played a skin tone over an emperor emperor Snare side on an on an acrylite. So this is an eight mil head Mill being thousands of an inch over a five mil head On us on an acrylite and he plays big band jason. Thank you very much and um It's brilliant. It's the most wonderful sound and then he puts his wallet on top and bang off he goes He's got his sound. So I we I try and encourage people to be adventurous with their head choices You know you and their tensions, you know Don't forget the bottom head and the bottom head is where it's at But yeah pitch bend and floor tom's. Yeah floor is a big old drummer floor tom It's a long way from the top to the bottom the the sound slows down if you like the energy Has longer to kind of hang around It's it's a really tricky job. I have done some floor tom videos and um, well, I think um I think like you just said it's it's it's like part of me is like, yes You got to experiment with different heads, but I know heads aren't cheap You play them for six months or whatever And then you're like do I buy something now that I'm like Going to experiment with and get something totally different, but but it is important to do that I mean to get something different. It's really interesting. I do talk to people at trade shows Where they're said, that's really expensive that Jeff. I says oh, what you get out tonight? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're going out for a meal. Yeah, we're gonna go out and we're gonna do this when we get trollied and Are you going on holiday this year? Yeah, I'm going on like yeah. Yeah, so So much is all that costing Oh, it's gonna cost about 1500 quid is that what this head is 20 20 quid Yeah And it and it's you know, and it won't make a good point Well, I know I know I I've seen that but I want to go drink some beers and yeah, I know I do prioritize beer over heads, but when you look at it when you look at it It really is a level of importance Is like right I've got a gig coming up where I do need some I need a sound man. I need a sound And I've done that many times where I've set up kits for guys who then recorded with them that week and sent me an emails And that was brilliant. Thank you very much. I got a job in hand. So again Yeah, only really Make it, you know, prioritize it with the music. Don't just you know, obviously if you're rich Just want to change and swap about But um do it. So do it. Yeah, because you know, when you look at how we spend our money, it's completely chaotic Um, and I think people are people are that really keen to get a good drum sound. They should have a set of heads You should see the set of heads. Well, um, they should have a set of heads Which helps them navigate the musical journey they're on Um, like some jazz heads and some some rock heads and you know, put it very simply Um, and then look at those look at those heads, you know a low medium or high tension and they and you've funnily enough You can find yourself, you know with them with a great sound In seconds, you know, and the last video I've done is a multiple tom setup, which is Which is so funny. It's just the loudest kit on the planet. That's cs dots top and bottom Oh, that's good. Yeah, you can't imagine the loudest kit But the the kit I've got next coming up is just emperor's top and bottom and you'll hear that and I I know for a fact I'm gonna get some emails which are gonna go. How do I get that sound? Well, then why don't we tell people as we wrap up here? Where can they Tell them where they can find your videos to say the name again all that stuff because really you can see all this Put into perspective and they're fast They really give you a good Yeah, I don't do any fine tuning a broad brushstrokes and they're all at drum tuning workshops on instagram There's a youtube page which I kind of started which is drum tuning workshops again These are the first videos I've ever done and they're great fun. They're quick. They're easy They're not like, you know, I've seen videos on floor toms, which last 16 minutes on one drum I'm I'm afraid my life is too short and It was no more important. It's not long enough You know, there you go. It's a good one. Yeah Just it doesn't need to be like that and um, and that's a friend of mine used to say that So that's time. You'll never get back Jeff time. You'll never Um, that's true. Hopefully people don't feel like that after they listen to our So keep it simple. Yeah, move quickly. No distractions. No babies, but No babies. Oh, I Yeah, no babies in the way you have to kind of move quickly and just get to the bar as quickly as possible Exactly. Now. I have a music space, which is nice. Like I have a space You know, like in an old warehouse building where I can go and be as loud as I want because I've learned having this stuff at home I just I can't do it. I played for 20 minutes. I was going to try and record some stuff and my wife was like, this is too loud And I said, all right, I'm going I'm leaving. I'm packing up everything and going to the studio. So Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah You've got to make space and um, yeah, but I'll I'll hope to be um on my holiday at in Chicago next year and I'm planning on being at some shops in the uk again um, just doing, you know, open open days And uh, but other than that, I'm on if you want to email me drum tuning workshops at email.com just far away You know, you're quite welcome to get in touch that way drum tuning workshops at email not gmail email Oh, I was going to say I think you said email instead of gmail It's a great site. It's a great site and it was around cool at the beginning And yeah, it's just a conversation, you know, it's um, and I really look forward to somebody, you know putting More history into the pit, you know Filling out filling out the gaps because I what I've just discovered on lockdown is is all available freely I mean apart from the james blade book um, and I'm really looking forward to hearing more about the conelius ward snare drum because obviously that is you know real interesting piece And more about the garden, you know And so yeah, that's fascinating and and yeah Yeah, and like you said that uh, this will I'm sure I'll have other episodes down the line where it takes Like I said, it takes a deep dive into each different kind of tension and all that stuff and and What what I've learned with a lot of these is as many of them Like george way is one person who has come up on yes I think four different episodes where I feel like now very Finally, we have like his whole history kind of put together and it took yeah four different episodes where I say go check out this one and this one So, um, it's an endless thing They're so influential, but they're so tied to the the needs of the current musician and all tuning technology is tied to the current needs, you know and um And often we don't need much. I mean the system we have now is the hardest, but it's the most cost-effective to make So it's it's worth it's worth having a look at it and obviously the system for timpani players They only have one side to to tune, but they have a more emphasis on the note. They have to make They have amazing the adams setups are amazing. Um, you know what, you know the company adams um, so We're about at the at the peak of our powers right now and um, but but we mustn't just forget We've got these two hands here with loads of muscles and You know, we can do it. It's we don't need the machines. We can just learn. No, apply it to the music We're better than the machines I would hope so Thank you, uh Thank you for taking the time to come and talk with us And it's been a pleasure to get to to know you over the last couple weeks and I look forward to Hanging out at Chicago next year in 2021 and we'll all we'll all get together and have a have a beer All right, nice one. All right, Jeff. Thanks for being on the show all the best If you like this podcast find me on social media at drum history And please share rate and leave a review and let me know topics that you would like to learn about the future Until next time keep on learning This is a Gwyn sound podcast