Jonathan Brown

Check 1 Check 2 Check 1 2 3. Testing. Is this thing on? Oh the sounds of the beloved sound check!  When you're playing music, you have to be able to hear the music, whether that's just yourself and/or your bandmates. That's where monitors come in to play. They either take the form of speakers on the stage pointed towards the musicians or these cool headphone-looking things we call In-Ear Monitors (IEM's for short). They're great because not only do they directly give you what you're trying to listen for, but they also isolate unwanted noise, enable playing with click tracks, enable clearly hearing things in stereo, and typically have a higher quality of sound. But probably the most important part of using IEM's is looking cool while using them. As awesome as IEM's are, they do have one drawback that I want to address, and that is they detach you from the room. Whoa now! Hey there! Take it easy! I'm not trying to throw shade on...

It's difficult to have a blog about drumming in church without talking about drum shields. In fact, I'd like to point out that churches are the only people discussing drum shields. If you've ever attended a concert at a venue that's not a church, you'll notice the drummer doesn't have a shield around him. Also, when I googled "drum shield" I found links that cater to churches and worship on the first page. There's nothing wrong with trying to control stage volume. I'm all for it, actually. But is a drum shield the right solution to control the volume of the drums? And what does a drum shield do anyway? For those of you who don't know, drum shields are those plexiglass walls that form a half circle around the perimeter the drums. The idea behind them is pretty simple. Without a drum shield, the drummer strikes the drum; the sound travels in the line of sight of the listener; the listener says, "Wow, that's loud." With t...

The drums have been too loud for a very long time. Many people have thought of different solutions to make drums sound quieter: drum shields, special drum heads, special sticks,  muffling inventions, special cymbals, electronic sets, and the list goes on and on. I believe the only real way to sound quieter as a drummer is to play quietly. Sure, all of those things mentioned above are well, and good, but a drum is only going to be as loud as the drummer plays it. So really, it's not the drums that are loud; it's the drummer that plays them loudly. But having a softer touch isn't enough. It's not enough to just play quietly. You have to have something else called "taste." You see, the drum part that you're playing was recorded in a place where drum volume was most likely not a problem. You can try to play the same part quietly, but your context is obviously different. Here's a good example: If you are using hot rods and the recordin...

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...

Cymbals are loud. Churches don't like loud noises. You see the problem? Sometimes it's not that a cymbal is too loud, it's that certain high frequencies are emphasized too much, making it piercing. Sometimes it's not that it's too piercing, but that it just rings forever and bleeds into all of the drum mics or vocal mics.  There's this wonderful invention popular among musicians called gaff tape. The wonder and magic of gaff tape is that it doesn't leave residue and has too many uses. One such use is to dampen drums and cymbals. For this post, I'd like to specifically focus on gaff tape on cymbals. First, I am by no means an expert on taping cymbals. I don't know what I'm doing. But that is the fun part! It's exploring the sounds you can get by doing _____ . There's no wrong answers; there's just sound. Be an explorer! Find what sounds best to you. So when would I put tape on my cymbals? Let me give you a few scenar...