5 Gear Investments Every Drummer Should Make

You know how there are little things in life that make big a difference? In this post I’m sharing five investments I think all drummers should make.

Hi Hat Clutch

You won’t believe how much this little clutch improved my life. Unlike regular Hi Hat clutches where you need to screw the bottom nut in to tighten the top HH, with this one you simply press a button to release it, attach the HH, put back the bottom nut and lock it in place. Additionally you can screw the whole thing to adjust it to exactly where you want it. This clutch can save you valuable time and patience when setting up and breaking down your drums. Click on the picture to find it online.

Drum Throne

Even though we sit on it for hours, we practice & perform on it and we wouldn’t even be able to play drums without it, many of us forget about the importance of the drum throne. Sitting comfortably and using proper posture is crucial to developing strong and lasting drumming skills. There are certain foot & hand techniques that require an optimal posture, just think of double bass drumming. Go to the music store and find out what kind of throne fits you, there are many different models. Do not hesitate to make this purchase an investment, it can easily cost a few hundred bucks, but think of how many times and how many hours you are going to sit on that thing.

It is called a (drum) throne for a reason!

Strong Cases

You just bought an expensive piece of equipment, you use it proudly Friday night during a gig with your band. At the end of the night you put it back in your car with the rest of the equipment and when you finally get home and you’re ready to unpack everything, you see it. Another piece of equipment fell on the newly purchased one and scratched it. Sounds familiar?

I can’t stress enough how important it is to protect your gear. The equipment we buy are musical instruments that need to be protected. When you’re planning a purchase, always save money for the case that goes with it as well. It is worth it. I have cases for every piece of equipment I own, because I’d like to continue using my instruments for as long as possible. Don’t shy away from investing in quality bags & cases, as those make your purchase an investment.

Hearing Protection

Because we use it for everything we do, not only as musicians but also as human beings; protect your hearing! So many careers have had to end early because of hearing problems. Please, please, please avoid it. The problem with hearing loss is that we can’t fix it; once a frequency’s gone, it never comes back. The earlier we start protecting our ears the better. There are many different options, some of them are cheaper and some are more expensive. Good protection can start as low as a few bucks for a couple of foam ear plugs and can go up to several hundred bucks for custom in ears. But it’s all worth it, just make sure that you not only buy them, but also use them!

Music Notation Software

Writing music, taking notes, transcribing music; these are all time consuming activities and they all need to have a readable layout. Writing them by hand is exhausting and takes a lot of patience as mistakes happen frequently. I recommend to everybody to learn how to use notation softwares such as Sibelius or Finale. They make your life so much easier and they’ll actually make it fun to write and transcribe music. The programs take a while to learn, but once you’ve got it down, you write super fast. Imagine writing all your emails, essays and reports still by hand; it would take you forever and half the people you’re sending it to, wouldn’t even be able to read it. Instead you write it on the computer, same thing with music. Also, once you’ve got the pdfs you can transfer them to an external device like an IPad. There are many apps that you can use to read music, my personal favorite is “ForScore”. With that app you can do everything and even more than with real paper. You can crop, rearrange, highlight, annotate etc. and it’s all saved on your IPad. Isn’t that awesome? Just imagine how many trees we’re saving!

I hope these tips will save you time and patience. Let's keep on sharing knowledge and experience, so that we can continue improving our craft day by day.

Thanks

Patrick

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