How to Play a Wash on Cymbals With a Brush Shaft

Properly outfitted, a drummer has many tools at his disposal. Besides just the sticks, drummers use rods and brushes to get a variety of sounds out of a drum set. This is especially true for cymbals, and you can get really different styles and sounds with these different tools and methods of cymbal attack. Here's how to get a crescendo wash sound on cymbals using the butt or shaft of a brush.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Hold your brushes by their bases. The base of a brush generally has a metal ring on the end, where you can pull the brushes in to retract them, or push them out to use the fringed metal ends on drums or cymbals.

2. Hold your two brushes out toward a cymbal that you will want to use. Get your preferred grip so that the brushes are perpendicular to the cymbal edge.

3. Begin by striking out with one brush. Hit the cymbal edge with the rubber side of the brush, lightly, and you'll hear a muted sound.

4. Hit with the other brush, increasing pressure just a little.

5. Keep alternating hits between the two brushes, using the rubber sides of the brushes, to crescendo.

6. Start to decrescendo by putting just a little bit less pressure on the hits, until you hear the wash sound on the cymbal begin to subside. When it has slacked off to the point you need, stop hitting and go on to the next element of your percussion.