Those Orange Things In The Back

Unlike the other drums, which only need to have their heads adjusted occasionally, and unlike the mallet percussion where all of the notes are provided for you, timpani need to change pitch almost every song, or even several times in the same song! On almost all modern timpani you use the foot pedal to adjust the pitch. Rocking your foot forward releases the pedal, while rocking your foot back locks it in place. You'll quickly find that the higher the pedal is, the lower the pitch, while the lower the pedal is (the more you push your foot down), the higher the pitch.

Tuning timpani quickly and accurately is a skill like any other-it takes time and practice to develop. Follow these steps to tune your drums.

• First, figure out what notes you need! Most of the time, especially in music for younger ensembles, the notes you need are listed at the very beginning of the music, almost always with the note for the biggest drum first-for examnle F-Bb means to tune the largest drum to F, and the next largest drum to Bb. If the music calls for a retuning, usually that will be shown on top of a long rest.
• Next, get a reference pitch-but only one! Play the bottom note, either on a tuner app such as Tonal Energy, Bandmate, or daTuner, on a mallet percussion instrument, or ask a tuba or other low instrument player to assist. Hum below that note and "slide" your voice up until you match it.
• Start with the pedal completely up (the lowest note on the drum) then tap the drum once in the playing area and gradually bring the pedal down until the note you're humming and the note from the drum match.
• After you have the first drum correctly tuned, sing the first pitch, then sing the target pitch of the second drum. Most of the time timpani are tuned in intervals of perfect 4ths or perfect 5ths, so if you practice hearing and singing those intervals you will get much faster at this in time.
• Repeat the tuning procedure for the second drum. Start with the pedal up, hit the drum once, and gradually push the pedal down until the pitch of the drum matches the target pitch.

When you're comfortable tuning the drums, check out musical examples related to the different instruments, such as quads or snare. You may also want to look at how to read music for the timpani.