Parts of a Snare Drum

Video Transcript

"Alright, so you got a snare drum. So what are all the different components of the snare drum? Well, first and foremost of course you have the head, snare head. There's many different kinds you can choose. I'm not going to go over all of them because as you play you're just going to get to know what you like and that's going to be the kind you pick. I like the coated, and I like Remo. It's just the sound I've come to like a lot and the power dot in the middle gives it a nice full sound that I really enjoy. So again, just pick different heads, try them out and you'll find what you like. Alright, so on the reverse side of the snare you've got the clear head. This is generally a lot lighter and this is what vibrates the snares and that's what these springs on the bottom of the snare drum are. They are called your snares. And this what gives the snare it's sound ultimately. It's kind of the marching snare kind of sound. The snares are controlled by the lever on the side. When the lever is pushed up like this, it makes the actual snare sound. When you take the lever down, the snares don't contact the bottom head, so now it makes kind of this sound, more like a tom-tom. Now this knob right here controls the tension with the snares. Right now I have it tuned pretty tight, makes it sound like this. But if I were to take off the snares and loosen it. you're going to get a lot looser sound. So now you can hear those snares rattling around a lot more. So it really depends on what sound you actually like. I personally like it to be a lot more tight, a lot more punch, so I keep it fairly tight. Now, you got the rim. There's a rim on each side, followed by all the lugs that go all the way around and this is what controls the tuning of your snare. Obviously, the tighter you torque these the tighter the heads going to be and ultimately your sound is going to be a lot tighter and the pitch is going to go up. You go down with the lugs, the pitch is going to go down. I'm not going to get into tuning right now because that would take awhile. But if you need to tune your drum, one of the best general all around methods is to go in a diagonal. So you would start here, go down to this lug, come up to this lug, down to this lug and it keeps the tension even if you do that. So you go back and forth, back and forth as opposed to tuning all the way around, the tension is going to be very uneven and it's going to be very hard to control the pitch coming out of your snare. So just remember when you tune, go diagonal. Also one general note is to keep the lugs lubricated. It will make tuning a lot easier, a lot smoother and it won't jump out of pitch as easily. And finally, the shell of the snare. Again, every snare has its own composite. Some are all wood, some are a composite of many different things. Again it just depends on what you actually like. So again, just try different snares. Snares also come in different depths. This one is a lot shallower, not very deep at all. You can get a lot deeper snares, for a lot deeper tone ultimately. You can go all the way up to a piccolo snare which is almost half the depth of this snare, a very high, very punchy tone. So basically what it all boils down to is you just have to find something you like and that's through trial and error, through the different heads, different brands of snare drums, different shell composites, the depth of your snare drum and after awhile you'll find something you like."