Tom-Tom

Kit & Gear

Also called tom, rack tom, floor tom.

Toms are the double-headed drums without snares: usually a couple of rack toms mounted above the snare and a floor tom standing on legs to your right. Each one is tuned to a different pitch, so together they form a melody you can sweep across.

You'll use toms mainly in fills, moving around the kit to build a phrase that hands the song back to the next section. They also carry whole grooves in blues, jazz, and tribal patterns. Because toms ring longer than a snare, controlling where the note stops matters as much as hitting it.

Tune your toms in relation to each other, high to low as you move around the kit, and tune them with the sticks you actually play with. Tap near the centre of each lug area rather than dead centre and match the pitch at every lug. A tom that sounds different depending on where you hit it isn't tuned yet.

Mute the tom you're not playing if you want clean fills. The easiest method is your free hand resting lightly on the head, and that's not cheating, it's technique. Gels or rings inside the drum tame the ring without killing the tone.