How to beat the drum

In tenor drumming, as well in all drumming, we must not think too lightly about how to beat the drum. The beating must be well pronounced, without becoming dominant. A short and pointy hit. Especially when using different tones of voicing in the tenor corps the so called projection is very important. An adjudicator may judge the tenor drummers without looking, so fancy flourishes will not help them there. Of course all tenor drummers in a group must strive to achieve the same projection.

Dominance in the drums can be a bottleneck for many tenor corps, what can you do about this. First try not to play all the drums at once. By applying more voicing parts to your score, you can overcome the possibility of overpowering the band. Second, play more like a feather and don’t hit your drum like crazy. Only hit the drum with power when playing an accent. Last but not least; when you must play together with all the tenor drums, try to match your volume and lower the overall volume of the corps.