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The "Power Square" Drum Setup
On a
standard 5-piece kit the snare and your three toms form the “Square” itself.
First, make the lower left corner of your square by placing the snare drum in
its correct position: between your legs with the top rim above your knees— right
around your belt buckle. Your knees should be close to the drum but not touching
it. It’s a good idea to start with your snare relatively flat, though some
drummers enjoy an angle in one direction or another. Experiment and see what you
like. Most importantly, your body should be centered behind your snare, facing
the direction of your bass drum and not on an angle.
The smallest rack tom forms the upper left corner of your square. Adjust it so
the top rim of the tom is a few inches above the top rim of the snare, but not
touching, with a slight angle downward towards your body. Right now, the snare,
small tom and your body should be in a straight line. Commonly, young drummers
set up too far towards the bass drum, which causes them to face the hi-hat and
lose their neutrality and balance in relation to the rest of the kit.
To form the upper right hand corner of the “Square”, position your 2nd rack tom
so that it matches the height and angle of your 1st rack tom. The two toms
should be very close together but not touching.
The floor tom forms the lower right hand corner of the Power Square. It should
be even with the snare and relatively flat. The top rim of the floor tom should
be well below the top rim of your second rack tom. Pull the floor tom nice and
tight to your knee but not touching it, about 4 to 8 inches away from your
snare.
Simple, right? Your Power Square is finished. What you’ve done is create a
powerful base of operations for your drumming. Now that the drums have been
“ergonomically” formed around your body you can experiment with angle and height
adjustments to fine-tune your set up to fit the way you like to play.
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