How to care for your drum kit. By: Dylan Phillips

Tuning. Tuning a drum kit is very simple. First you require a drum key, one of these tends to be included with the kit upon purchase. With the key place it on the lower middle lug of the snare drum and turn clockwise to tighten when this is done proceed to tighten the lug opposite and then continue on the other lugs in this same fashion. This method is for all the drums so you can tune the rest in this same way.

Changing the skin. To change the skins on your drums you require the tuning key once more and you do need to do the opposites method once more, only surprisingly instead of using it to tighten by turning it clockwise you want to loosen it by turning it counterclockwise. When it is loose enough to remove you need to remove it and place the new skin where the other once was and then you have to tighten it the same way as you would tune it. By the way if you do not play your drum kit very often I would recommend throwing a sheet over it from time to time to keep out the dust.

Cleaning the cymbals To change the cymbals you need to use a cloth if its just dusty but if it is grimy you should never just wash it in soapy water, you should use an actual cymbal cleaning solution from a respectable drum company like Zildjian. Some people prefer they’re cymbals to be filthy though these are called green cymbals and are sometimes preferred by jazz drummers because the grime makes the cymbals sound different. It apparently sounds more rough, I wouldn’t know since I play on an electric kit and my rubber cymbals only get dusty. I wish I was aloud to play my acoustic kit but unfortunately I live next door to a man who was actually voted out of his own town by everyone on his street so I think you can guess that he's a bit of a git.

Changing a cymbals tone If you ever want to change the sound of your cymbals without ever having to buy new ones a good way of doing this is to change the cleanliness of the cymbal. A clean cymbal will make a crisp ringing noise as a normal cymbal would, but If you want it to emit a much rougher and coarse sound a good method is to bury it in your garden for a day. If your thinking that this would be utter madness and that you don’t want your cymbals coated in grime or as green cymbals which is what most drummers refer to them as I would have to tell you that a lot of drummers do this but when your cymbals are like this they are a bit more prone to decay and so they do require a bit more work but as we all know its not easy being green. I know I did mention this in the last slide but its just a really interesting thought and to be honest it deserved its own slide.

Pedals Two of the most important parts on your drum kit are the bass and HI hat pedals. Without these the bass drum is useless and the hi hat is stuck only making one noise when you should be able to alternate between a crisp crunchy noise and a crash. Dust is they're main enemy, but old age also affects them, if they get dusty it shows that you don’t take drumming seriously and don’t play enough. If they do start getting rusty they will start falling apart a good solution is to either acquire a new set or use some rust remover, the rust remover may result in a bit of shine loss but to be honest, when your playing on stage not many people are going to be staring at your pedals. If they start getting stiff use some oil to get them working again I recommend something like WD40.