hooray for you. really. i didn't intend for this to be a dick-size contest. really. nor was i implying anything. i've been playing drums for 20+ years myself, and i too have command of a number of other instruments including piano, guitar, bass and vocals. i too can sight-read. BFD. hooray for me. whoopee. yay. *rolls eyes*
it seems to me that you need to re-read my original post (and Farview's, too, it seems) . but let me save you the effort and recap:
i said that drum shells have one frequency that they *prefer* to vibrate at. you will get the best tone by tuning your drum to that frequency.
i said that *one* manufacturer has been known to make drums to specific pitches and match the shells so that the set works as a whole. hooray for them.
i said that predominantly JAZZ guys in BYGONE DAYS have been (and were) known to retune their toms to match the key of the song. did i say "rock guys"? nope. did i say "modern drummers"? nope. did i say "modern producers or productions"? again, nope. and in most of those jazz instances, we're talking 1, maybe 2 toms. much easier to do than, say, on Bozzio's kit from the Zappa days.
now that we've done our cliffs notes recap.....
.....the fact remains that most rock guys these days can NOT tune their drums. the weckls and phillips's of the world certainly can--those guys are top flight, world class drummers. i'd LOVE to get to work with one of them sometime--it would be an honor, and you should be thrilled that you have that opportunity--you're a lucky guy. I got the opportunity to work with Carter Beauford back in the early/mid 90s (from 92-96) and i treasure those times--that guy is an amazing drummer. and i certainly miss those days.
i'd still wager that if you were to give the majority of today's drummers (in bands that you hear on modern pop/rock radio) a drum key, a set of heads and un-headed shells and tell em to get em in tune and working as a unit, that you'll end up with a clusterfuck. this is why they have drum techs that they pay to take care of this FOR them.
maybe the weckls and phillips's of the world don't tune their toms to specific pitches--let alone inbetween songs to match the key of the song. again, i wasn't talking about THOSE guys. last i checked, neither of them were contemporaries of Coltrane or Parker or Davis (or heaven forbid someone like Artie Shaw or Bennie Goodman)--which is the era I was referring to. as you pointed out, though, the weckls and phillips's, DO, however, tune their drums to specific intervals.
Phil, as someone who can sight-read, you should have a firm grasp on the basic and simple fact that basic music theory DICTATES that an "interval" IMPLIES specific pitches. maybe not A-440 (or A-220 or
A-880) or any other common, named tonal pitch found in western music, but you HAVE to have a certain and FIXED number of cycles (in Hz) between pitches in order for there to be an interval (of course, depending where you are in the scale will determine the length of that interval). Therefore, regardless of the actual NOTE that the drum is tuned to, there HAS to be a note implied in order for there to be an interval between the drums. Maybe that "note" is 3 cents up from C#4 and doesn't have an actual *name* in western music. that does not however, mean that it is not a note.
so in short (and this is waaaay too long already), YES, while maybe Weckl or Phillips don't set out to tune their drums to specific notes......the drums DO end up there. that's my point--contrary to what some people believe, drums are indeed pitch driven instruments.....and in order to work optimally as a whole, they should be tuned in intervals. whether you do this by ear, or whether you match them to a keyboard does not matter--the end result is still the same.
cheers, thank you, and good night.
wade
