Thread: Volume control for zill rings and clacks

I am capable of producing different sounds with my zills, and I am pretty solid at producing different volumes when doing clicks. But, I am not sure that I really got the hang of volume control when playing rings and clacks - I can somewhat change volume, but unlike with clicks, I do not have a wide range or the level of control I'd like. What are the knobs I need to turn: Strike lighter? Strike from closer together? Just practice and it will come? I just learned the power of relaxing the fingers, do I need to work more on that?

Originally Posted by steffib

Just practice and it will come.

Spend time just playing with your zills to create a sound-landscape without thought of rhythm. Play to find the range of sounds but don't think about it too much.

Maybe focus on playing around with things like:

both thumb and finger coming together and releasing...now thumb moves but finger remains relatively stilll...finger moves but thumb remains fairly still...playing with partly muting the sound of the "finger zill" with the index finger/ index and ring finger/ ring finger resting on the zill..pressure changes, striking so the zills hit sort of half and half....

Play. Practice. Believe that ti will come...also...do you have more than one set of zills? You'll find that different zills shapes/density/etc have different moods and voices

Hold the zills so they are at right angles to one another and play on the rims.

For rings: in my troupe, we do drills to play louder & louder, then softer & softer, specifically to learn volume control. To me it seems to come from how hard you strike, and how far apart your zills are when you begin strike.

You might also try experimenting with a different set of zills. Not all sets of finger cymbals are capable of producing the same ranges of sounds.

Ah, thanks a lot! I am definitely on the right track: I play different zills, Turquoise and a set of small vintage Zildjians, because I like the tonal variety they offer. I work a lot with perpendicular/clicks/t-shape hits, and thanks to Aszmara, I figured out how to develop a dynamic range for that. And, Ozma, I have an inkling that you may have worked with Artemis, I recognize this ;-)

Maybe I am off my rocker, but it seems to me that at some level of mastery, one should be able to play pretty much every zill stroke at different dynamic (or volume) levels, esp. softer, without a loss of speed or tone - which is my goal. Not to be reached soon, but a few years down the road.

No, you are not off your rocker! You can totally be in charge of playing whatever volume you choose for any sound; you will reach your goal.

Ah, thanks for the encouragement.

It seems that dynamic range is sometimes mentioned, but not usually taught in a tangible way. Up to now, Aszmara has been the only teacher who really made things click for me (no pun intended) when it comes to playing clicks, but I wasn't ready to harass her about rings at that time.