by Thomas Altmann » Mon Jan 02, 2023 1:30 pm
Happy New Year!
It's somewhat hard to give a clear answer to this question, because we all have more or less different playing concepts and sound ideas, in addition to having different drums with thicker or thinner membranes on them.
To avoid any misunderstanding, let me first explain that what I call a quinto is not a relative drum size, but a musical function of the - often smaller - solo drum in rumba and conga (the rhythm). I call my main, center or lead drum the macho, coming from a pairing with just one other, bigger drum, logically called the hembra. If you add a third drum, it often ranges between those two in size and pitch. It is placed either in a linear row on the same side as the hembra, as practiced by drummers like Patato or Jerry González, or to the opposite side to the hembra, forming a V setup. The third drum, la tercera, as Changuito calls it, is often used in the rhythmic position of the segundo drum in rumba, but not always; that's not obligatory.
When you add a fourth drum, the deciding factor is: What intervals do you want to hear? And what do you mean by "playing melodies"? Any phrase that uses more than one tone forms a melody. It is actually impossible to play anything on a double, triple or quadruple drum setup without creating a melody at the same time. If you strike a drum just once, at that specific moment you already have the tone, but it takes at leat two strokes more to lay out a rhythm, so the tonal or sound dimension comes before organizing time. In music, you cannot separate time from sound.
The tonal quality of a conga drum comes out best at a central tuning, meaning a pitch that is suited to the size of the drum, first and foremost to its diameter. The thickness of the skin should also fit the dimensions of the drum, but you can experiment a bit. I found out that, as long as the drum material, wood and hardware can take it, a thicker skin is more versatile and delivers a clear tone at a wider range of pitches. However, if you tune a drum to a tone higher than it is designed for, it will always tend to come down to its "favourite" pitch. So it is better to choose your drum sizes with that in mind. If you tune a drum considerably higher or lower than its natural, central pitch range, you will end up with a more percussive quality, where the attack dominates the tone. This is not bad per se, it is even occasionally desirable, but less capable of carrying tone or melody. Don't forget that in an ensemble, our principal role is a rhythmical and percussive one. And ideally, any tuning should also relate to the key or the harmonic context of the music - if that is possible. (There has been a discussion about this topic in another thread which hasn't really been closed finally.)
You can see why it would be questionable if I presumed to tell you exactly what drum sizes you should use. All I can do is report what I use, and why.
My macho drum represents the tonic of a chord, the hembra on my right (as a right handed person) is tuned a fourth below, functioning as the dominant or leading tone. The third drum to my left is just a second below the macho, or a minor third above the hembra, so I get something like a dominant seven chord without the third (so it could also be a min7). This setup is already complete for my usage. I have also experimented with a sus4 tuning, with the hembra as the tonic, the macho as the fifth and the third drum on my left as the fourth. In each case, my macho and the third drum on my left are tuned just a second apart. My tip is that these drums should not differ to much in diameter. You may even use the same size for both, because if you tilt your macho slightly (as you should as a sit-down player), this drum sounds already higher than the other one that stands flat on the floor. If my third drum is considerably larger than my macho, it's tuning always falls naturally down to a pitch I don't want to hear.
The concept behind this is that I want to reproduce any Cuban folkloric rhythmic arrangement in its correct or traditional orchestration, and most folkloric drum ensembles in Cuba consist of three drums. However, some of those folkloric drums clearly sound outside of the standard 10.5" to 12.5" conga setup. Jerry González had used an additional high-pitched quinto drum with a typical bell-like sound quality and a corresponding small diameter, and he used it as such; he played this drum typically in the spots where a rumba quinto sits. If you want to hear that, then your fourth drum might be a 9.5" drum or anything near. But maybe you have a different musical concept altogether.
What I wanted to hear sometimes, was the low sound of a iyá batá that could also function as a bombo or bass drum to my set. So consequently my choice for my fourth drum was one with a larger diameter. I could have used a drum with the same diameter as my hembra and just tuned it lower; but this would result in a rather percussive, dull bass drum sound. A larger diameter offered me the option to assign a tonal, and thus melodic, function to the drum. The exact pitch of my deep sounding fourth drum is hardly a matter. It should fit the chord defined by my first three, that's all. It might be wise to keep the chord fairly open harmonically, which means using octaves, fourths and fifth rather than the thirds of a given chord. But perhaps, when you say you want to play melodically, these thirds or sixths are exactly what you want to hear.
My low pitched fourth drum stands in the middle behind my macho, so I can reach them fairly comfortably with either hand.
I hope that helps a bit -
Thomas