How to Play a High Hat Bell & Wash

Video Transcript

"JOEL SIEGEL: So the next two aspects of the open hi-hat that I want to talk about--these are kind of more of accessory sounds. If you're trying to get a little out, they're not going to use a whole lot, but if you want to get some kind of special textures, you can use these sounds. And this is getting the wash out of the hi-hat and that's the sound that you get when you start to have a lot of the different overtones from the cymbals and you're striking the side of the cymbals--or towards the edge of the cymbal. That's what's going to affect the wash. So this is striking the side of the hi-hat getting that wash sound. It's a bit of a crash, you know. If you want just kind of another crash in your vocabulary--a smaller one than your eighteen and your seventeen, whatever you have around your kit--you can use that. That's always an option. The other aspect of the hi-hat--also not used often but good to know about just because it's a different texture and color--is going to be your dome, and you can play it open. It's that real piercing sound like it's time to eat, and you can also play it when it's closed. It's a real choked sound--just adds another flavor, another texture, another color to your musical soundscape."