Kid Guitars

Without a doubt, the snare drum is just as integral to your kit as your bass drum. Personally, I prefer stripped down kits: a bass drum, a snare, a floor tom, a high hat and two cymbals – simple, easy to break down and carry. But any skinmaster will tell you, tuning a snare on your childrens drumset can be a real pain. Here’s an easy tutorial:

~ Turn the snares off. The snare drum cannot be tuned correctly with interference from the snare sounds.

~ Tune the top head first. Turn each lug clockwise to increase the tension of the head and make the drum’s pitch higher.

~ Tune one lug, and then tune the lug on its opposite side (180 degrees away). The drum tunes better when you don’t tune these lugs in a circular sequence.

~ Continue this pattern so that you never tune two lugs in a row that are less than a few inches from each other.

~ Repeat this sequence with the bottom head. Be careful not to tune it too high, because these heads tend to break easily.

~ Test the pitch of each lug when finished by lightly playing about 1 inch away from the lug with a drumstick.

~ Make sure all the lugs have equal pitch. At this point, your drum should be tuned.