CASA - the contemporary a cappella society - Building A Better Kick Drum

Building A Better Kick Drum

Written by Wes Carroll

Tuesday, 29 August 2006

Hey Wes,

I'm in a very new a cappella group at my college, and I've been the designated vocal percussionist. I'm far from perfect, but I'm the best we have at the moment, and I suppose the most willing to learn.

My question is about my kick drum. I bought your first DVD (and it was great; the second is on its way), and the kick drum sound you make is different than the one I had come up with on my own. Instead of a "thupp" sound, I make something more akin to a "Pf." Even though that's the classic phonetic snare drum spelling, it's very different, I assure you. The "f" sound is barely there compared to the longer "f" giving the snare drum its, well, snare. I build up a lot of pressure behind my lips and let them explode (in a controlled way) and it produces a sound I really like in terms of volume and not sounding like a human-made sound.

The problem I run into with it is doing multiple kicks in rapid succession. In its way, I like my kick better for how it sounds, but yours has more versatility.

Whereas you can alternate b's and d's starting the kick drum sound outlined in the DVD, the best solution I've found is to put "t's" in between the "Pf's", i.e. t-Pf-t-Pf and so on. This also can't be sustained easily. I don't really like this solution.

Perhaps you know the sound I'm making, and a good way to do it rapidly, or maybe I should just trust in practicing your sound for its versatility.

Please help!

(P.S. when are you going to be in the Denver area, I'd love to attend a session. A VP session for me and one of the more overall a cappella sessions for my group)

-Sean

Sean,

Good for you for taking the reins! (And good for your group as well!)

I'll cut to the bad news first: I don't have the answer you're looking for for your kick drum sound. I will say that I am sometimes dissatisfied with the speed I'm able to get with "my" sound (which I put in quotes because we need to distinguish it somehow, but of course, it's free for anyone to learn and use :-) ). A fast kick is phenomenally satisfying to me, but like you, I can't get the tone I want with the speed I want. For example (spoiler to follow!) in "The Bone" off The House Jacks' second-to-last album Fitchy & Grikko, the producer Freddie Feldman had to do some sonic surgery to get the double-kick-drum pedal sound we were looking for.

Now for the good news: it's solvable, even live, but you're not going to like the answer.

There are three things you should do to get around this problem: one is just practice. Your speed will improve very slowly, but it will improve.

Two, learn some new kick sounds for alternating. You've already done good work along these lines interspersing the t's among your favored sound. (Also, if you're used to putting your sound on the beats and the t's between the beats, try doing it the other way around. That should help you both improve the t sound, and also accent the two sounds more evenly, both of which should improve the overall effect.)

Three, think about ways you can change the patterns you're performing so that they don't need the fast kick. This is not the most satisfying solution, of course, but having an "out" for when your mouth isn't up to a challenging pattern is always a good idea.

So, though I don't have a full solution, I hope and expect that these partial solutions will get you where you want to go.

Best of luck and hang in there!
Wes