Snare height

Grolubao

Senior Member
Hi all,

I'm currently in a music school in London and my colleagues and teachers complain that I have the snare too high and they don't really understand how can I play that way.

My snare is high because I don't want to hit my legs and that I'm in a position of 45 degrees angle with my arm/wrist and snare because I can get more rebound the more parallel one is to the head. Having said that I guess it would feel more confortable to have the snare a bit lower because my shoulders relax more, but then I hit my tighs (I have big tighs).

Is there something that I can do about it?
 
Keep the snare where it is unless the position is causing technique problems or physical injures.

You should post a pic though.
 
Snare stands adjust for a reason. If you need the drum high then play it high.
I play my snare kind of high and tilted down away from me. If I tilt my snare the other way and lower it I can't do proper rim shots and my right wrist hurts. My elbows are at 90 degrees. My hips are a few inches higher than my knees as I sit. My thighs are at the same angle as my snare.
 
My snare is navel height and slightly tilted toward me .It's not quite oldschool Ian Paice high but close.
 
The height of my equipment changes from time to time. Sometimes my snare might be waist hight, sometimes the rim edge closest to my body is around my navel region as well. My floor tom goes up and down as well, always being pretty level with my snare drum. The snare is always tilted away from me, but not at a really extreme angle. If my drum kit has been completely broken down, I always start setting up my snare by having it perfectly level, and then I ever so slightly tilt it away.

I know this has nothing to do with the height, but my throw off is positioned close to my body, rather then the lest or right side. I do this so I can tilt the stick back and switch the snares off quickly with the butt of the stick.
 
Are you at Drum-Tech by any chance? Sounds familiar to when I was there...

As a general rule of thumb, have the bottom of your snare, level with the top of your stool.

Dave weckl also says to hold your hands in a horizontal resting position. Put the stick in your hand when it's like that and then put the snare in that area.

The whole reason they are telling you to lower your snare height is to assist posture, balance and most of all tone.
 
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I'm on ICMP.

I finally took a picture. Most people criticize my snare height but this is the only way not to hit my legs, and honestly speaking looks good to me. Most teachers have their snare at the same level as their legs and I honestly can't understand how they are able to rimshot without hitting the legs:

image.jpg
 
If its comfy for you who cares? Only thing would be it would be tricky to not play rimshots all the time.

Check todd sucherman for high snare, think chris coleman has his snare in a similar position to you. They are both badasses!

D
 
Wow. I was expecting something truly outrageous!!

As far as ridiculous placement goes, that doesn't even register on the scale. It's well within the (relatively broad) scope that I'd consider "normal." It's higher than some, sure. But it really doesn't look out of place at all.

If it's comfortable and allows you do play the way you like, leave it be.
 
Oh my god. Those are the biggest thighs I've ever seen.

I have a similar attitude towards hitting my legs with my sticks. Start by lowering it an inch, and see how you feel after a week of practice.
 
In all honesty, looking at your arm and the resting position, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. If you came to me saying "My Wrists and shoulders hurt a lot" then I would probably have something to say... If you can knock out a badass rim shot and still have nice tone, then I don't see the problem.

Keep to what is comfortable for you. I would maybe drop it just a tad, because you would still have some space between your leg and your hand when playing, also if your hand keeps hitting your leg, make sure you're lifting your hand up when going for strikes. Imagine there is a piece of string attached to your wrist from the ceiling. It may help...

Other than that, keep it up dude and focus on YOUR playing, not what other people are doing.
 
I'm on ICMP.

Yeah, the Institute branched off from Tech Music schools, mainly because of the way that Tech was run so I was led to believe, however the curriculum is pretty much the same.

Tech really focused on posture and snare positioning... But to be fair, as I've said in my previous post, you posture doesn't seem too bad. I agree you would be hitting rim shots most of the time with the snare that high, but to be fair, pretty much all back beats they would teach you at that place involve rim shots anyway...
 
Looks perfect to me. I have no idea how some guys play with the snare so LOW. Yours appears ideal - full access to the head and rim with your arm and wrist at a fairly neutral position. I am not sure why they would suggest you lower it.

Play on.
 
If you would not have said anything, I would not have thought there was a problem.

Thats probably just a tad higher than where mine sits, but that means nothing. I have always played around in a snare height zone that includes your position...and for me I'm always trying to optimize the snare height relative to my comfort versus distance to my 10" tom. I don't like LOW positioned toms and I like them to be relatively unangled....so I've been going back and forth.

Someone mentioned Dave Weckl....his videos have a been a tremendous assistance to me and the stick control and fulcrum elements I learned from those videos allowed me to get the stick bounce I wanted to be able to lower the snare a little (but not much lower than yours by any stretch) and still have a good "jump" to the 10" tom when needed.
 
Oh my god. Those are the biggest thighs I've ever seen.

I have a similar attitude towards hitting my legs with my sticks. Start by lowering it an inch, and see how you feel after a week of practice.

I know! :D

Better have big thighs than belly though :)
 
The more paralell one hits the snare the most rebound one gets. This is proven by an experiment on youtube, can't recall that, thus the reason for the height together with not hitting my legs.

I can perfectly rimshot or not, depending on what I need, was just to compare with you guys if you thought it was ontrageous high.

I don't really believe in the concept "whatever is more comfortable to you" simply because it's physics, and in physics there is no such a thing, there is one correct way of doing things, simply nobody ever studied it, but that's for another topic.
 
I don't really believe in the concept "whatever is more comfortable to you" simply because it's physics, and in physics there is no such a thing, there is one correct way of doing things, simply nobody ever studied it, but that's for another topic.

Well, there is only one "most efficient" way, from a physics standpoint, but there are many comfortable ways to play. Efficiency is not the only criterion for choosing a set-up, though the more logical among us may wonder why.

I say, to each their own, as long as it doesn't cause injury. That's one of the main reasons I disagree with your teachers trying to get you to change snare height.
 
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