Timpani Notes
A Band Director's Reference for Kettle Drums
Tuning the Timpani
Tuning the drums is an essential skill for all timpanists, regardless of experience or ability. It requires the player to have the pitch of each drum in his or her ear and listen critically, not to mention saving the director time and effort in rehearsal and in performance. It is important that young timpanist learn to sing scales and significant intervals. This will give the player the ability to tune any number of notes from one reference pitch, and to tune each timpano to the others.
To adjust the pitch of the drum, the player will push the toe of the pedal down to make the pitch higher, and the heel of the pedal down to make it lower. To tune the drum to a specific pitch, start with the heel all the way down (the lowest pitch on the drum). Listen to your pitch reference, then lightly strike the drum that you are tuning. Push the toe of the pedal in until the pitch of the drum matches the reference pitch, approaching the note from below.
The first step to tuning the timpani is having a reference pitch. While this pitch can come from anywhere, it is recommended to use a tuning fork or a pitch pipe rather than a keyboard or wind instrument from the band. Learning to use these tools will give your young timpanists the ability to tune the drums in a variety of situations, especially in performance, where you do not want the tuning process to be heard.
When tuning the kettle drums for performance, it is important for the timpanist to know the range of the different drums and to be able to select which pitches to play on which drums. In general, each timpano has its own fundamental pitch (the note the head has been tuned to play with pedal all the way up) and has a functional range of a perfect fifth. The playable ranges of each drum are:
32"
D2-A2
29"
F2-C3
26"
Bb2-F3
23"
D3-A3
20"
F3-C4
Knowing these ranges will help you and your student timpanists make good choices regarding placing pitches on the drums. When the pitches called for could be played on more than one drum configuration, try to use the middle to low range of the drum, as this range produces a higher quality sound than the high end.