As I put together the old Rogers drum kit I had purchased off minivan dude at a Toronto storage locker facility, I had a close look at the ride cymbal and its stand.

My thoughts went back to the mid-70s, and the thrill of buying my first drum kit from the Long & McQuade music store.  It was a beat-up, but solid, used Sonor kit with dark green sparkle wrap. The Turkish Zildian ride cymbal that came with it had a huge crack in it, running straight out from near the bell, and then zigzagging a bit parallel with the cymbal’s circular lines.

My drum teacher, Glenn Price, showed me a small hole that had been drilled into the cymbal in an attempt to stop the crack from spreading further.  I couldn’t complain because I paid only $175 for a full kit of good quality, very well-used, drums and cymbals.

While the ride cymbal sounded fine, because of the crack I used it only for rhythm. But that is the raison d’etre of a ride cymbal — to let it ride with the rhythm.

In a rock song, for example, the drummer may beat a repetitive rhythm on the ride cymbal’s surface or bell — a key part of the rhythmic mix. So I stuck to the rhythm and was reluctant to crash the cymbal for fear of the crack spreading.

Pings, washes, crashes and moans

A ride cymbal is typically the widest and heaviest cymbal on the drum kit. Its sounds include the “ping” of the stick striking the cymbal, and the “wash” as the cymbal resonates with repeated strikes on its surface.  For a hard percussive effect, you can strike the cymbal’s bell.

There is also the option to hit the cymbal from the side with force for a crash effect. Or to build up a heavy wash in the cymbal by using a roll on its edges with sticks, or its surface with soft mallets.

So many permutations, techniques and tools. With some effort you can get other cool orchestral sounds out of a ride cymbal, like a moaning “ooh” or “oh” sound from resonating the cymbal with a violin bow.

Using a violin bow to resonate the cymbal — from my days with the North York Percussion Ensemble.

The ride cymbal I got from minivan dude in a sketchy meeting at a storage locker is a 22-inch diameter “ping” ride made in the U.S. by the fabled Turkish-Armenian Avedis Zildjian cymbal company. It came with a solid Yamaha stand. I had a quick look online and found a few of these cymbals retailing used for several hundred bucks. Was my cymbal hot, or what?

A ping-style ride emphasizes the sound of the strike — this is especially important in loud volumes, like a rock concert. But the sound of this particular ride was a little too pingy for my liking.  I was using plastic-tipped sticks so that probably sharpened the ping sound even further.  I would try to dig out some wood-tipped sticks to see if that softened the ping a bit.

And maybe the cochlear implant in my right ear was sharpening the ping sound. If I hit the cymbal hard, the force of the ping was very sharp. Maybe a low-tech solution like duct tape might dull it down a bit.  I would experiment.

Feuding cymbals

The Zildjian ping ride cymbal now to my right, and the Sabian high-hats operated by my left foot, represented dueling sides of a family feud. After being passed over for the Zildjian company’s leadership, one brother struck out for Canada and established his own cymbal manufacturing company in New Brunswick: Sabian.

Meanwhile, Zildjian had centralized manufacturing in its biggest market, the U.S.  With its special-recipe alchemy of copper, tin and other elements, Zildjian has manufactured fine cymbals for almost 400 years.  Its product got a boost when Beatles drummer Ringo Starr played a kit with Zildjian cymbals on the Ed Sullivan show.

I hoped that the feuding would settle down and that my cymbals would cooperate when I started kicking the tires on my Rogers drum kit.