It was almost impossible to get mid-80s drums low enough for an average size person and thus many times the toms were angled so steeply that the playing surface was near vertical or the toms were positioned close to head high. Many drum companies were making power depth toms and selling rack systems and 26″ kick drums.
Now days I would simply use a snare stand for the rack (like Bonham in the 70s) but back in the early 60s snare stands were significantly less sturdy and that wouldn’t have been a real option.īy the 80s, the pendulum had swung the opposite way.
I have a vintage Ludwig from the 60s and even a couple decades after mass production began in earnest, the rack tom still couldn’t go anywhere near high enough for my 6’1″ frame. They favor shorter players in terms of floor tom leg length, rack tom mounting height, and snare stand height. Most vintage kits suffer from not being able to be set up very tall. Those original dixieland and big band drummers set the standard that would continue to plague drummers for decades to come. This way wasn’t particularly ergonomic but there wasn’t really any other option. When drum kits began to be produced intentionally, they could often only be set up one way. Originally, most drum kits were cobbled together from unrelated components. The first thing to realize is that drum kit setup throughout history has been dictated more by visual style, available drum sizes and hardware design, popular drum culture, and hero worship than by any sort of logic.
Reading on will give a bit more context and put the whole series in perspective slightly. If reading isn’t your thing, I suggest just watching through the playlist. Throughout this article I will insert videos from my YouTube channel and from several others whom I trust (including Rich Patterson, Bill Bachman, and Ash Pearson), to further illustrate basic points.
There are clear and obvious mistakes that will definitively result in a less ergonomic setup. This fact should not, however, be taken to mean that anything goes and all opinions are valid. There is no single right answer to what a kit should look like and no perfectly ergonomic drum it likely exists in the real world.
Taking into account physiology, physics, and traditionally correct drumming techniques, certain ways of setting up a drum kit can be viewed as more or less ergonomic, efficient, and functionally optimized for each individual player than others. That is a range of 50 to 72 years in which poor posture, overreaching, unnecessary twisting, contorted wrists, oddly angled knees, or other structural problems can drastically take a toll on your body. A typical drummer in America learns to play between about 6 and 16 years old, and barring catastrophe, will often play into their 60s or even up to the average life expectancy of around 78 years. This section of my site lays out the correct and most functional principles of setting up a drum set so that it is playable, efficient, and most importantly, ergonomic.ġ an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely - Merriam-WebsterĢ the study of the relationship between workers and their environment, esp the equipment they use - Īs a drummer, your work equipment is your drum kit and how you relate to it, or how it is set up around you, can change both how you play daily and how it affects you over your drumming career.