Jonnie Brown

There’s a myth out there that some drummers and even worship leaders believe: If you play with hot rods/plastic multi-rods like you do with regular sticks, it will sound the same but be quieter. I'm not sure if you have noticed this or not yet, but that's not true . You see, there’s this thing called “tone.” Those little wooden hot rods will change your tone dramatically. Sure, it’s softer than using sticks, but your tone will suffer. The tone of a drum comes from the bottom resonant head. When you play with hot rods as if they are sticks, the bottom head isn’t activated nearly as much, thus, giving you a really weak tone. The cymbal tone can suffer, too. Often times the whole cymbal won’t be activated as easily, and you’ll just get these weird overtones when you play it with rods. That’s not to say that hot rods are to never be used ever again. There’s a certain attack that only these rods can give you. You have to change you technique when you use anything other than a drum...

Cymbals are loud and all, but let's be honest, drums can be loud, too. Let's just explore a few different ways you can get your drums sounding quieter. 1) You can hit them softer. It's genius. Yet nobody does it. You could be a hipster! You can start a new trend of playing softer because no one else seems to be giving it a fair try. "Yeah, but I don't have that kind of control." - if that is your genuine response, let me ask you: Is that kind of control something you can develop? or something people are just born with? If "control" is something you can develop, (it is) then that's something you should practice if you want to have it. Something that helps me play softer when I need to is mixing. While I'm playing, I listen to what I'm hearing (the band and myself) and I'll mix my playing to the volume that sounds good with everything else I hear. And then I take note of how hard I'm hitting and stay close to that for the...