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What is playing "on/off" the head? Which of these techniques do you use? |
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For years I played "on the head" meaning: When you perform a bass drum stroke and the beater makes contact with the bass drum head, you keep the beater stuck up against the bass drum head and you don't release it until you begin to perform the next stroke. Due to the volume of the music and hitting hard, playing "on the head" can be typical for heavy metal drummers while playing slow, but when playing quick, obviously you can't hold the beater to the head.
A few years ago when I was recording a CD I noticed during playback that the bass drums sounded different on the slow strokes when I was burying the beater "on the head" than on the fast strokes when I played "off the head". I decided to learn to always play "off the head" by practicing very slow grooves and concentrating on pulling my foot back off the pedal after each stroke.
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