How to Play the Bass Drum Faster

The deep, booming bass drum is not generally known as one of the faster orchestral instruments. Despite this stereotype, speed is often called for as part of playing this drum, due to its common presence in music that is traditionally up-tempo, such as marches and fanfares. While practice is always the most important part of developing speed and facility on an instrument, you can also employ several tricks to improve your quickness on the bass drum.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Turn the bass drum on its side. Although it's typical to play a bass drum positioned with the drum head perpendicular to the ground, turning it on its side so the drum part is facing up, like a snare drum, can give you an advantage in speed. This is because the motion of your arm will change to a more powerful, downward stroke.

2. Get mallets with tighter heads. Softer, more compact heads give you a drier, crisper and more well-defined sound to your strikes, making them more distinct and allowing you to play more audible hits in less time.

3. Grip the mallets closer to the heads. Doing this allows you to strike and roll the bass drum using more wrist action because it requires less power overall for smaller strokes.

4. Strike the drum closer to the outside of the head. Like the tighter mallet heads, this gives your sound more definition. It also allows you to play with your arms closer to your body, giving your forearms better leverage for strokes.

5. Relax as much as possible. Striving to play faster can make you prone to tense up, but this tightens your muscles and requires more energy, making it more difficult to play fast and technical passages. Instead, breathe deeply and slowly, and strive for a sense of fluidity in your hands, arms and body as you play.

6. Use gravity as your ally. As part of being relaxed and conserving energy, allow the drum mallets to fall to meet the drum head, preserving your energy and reflexes to quickly pull the heads up again for each note.