During my extensive travels in the US and Europe as a working class musician, I have noticed a trend that, though certainly not new, is deserving of some commentary. It has become so pervasive that I have been compelled to devise a special word just to describe it:
cym·bal·i·tis - noun – \ˈsim-bәl-ī-tәs\
: the condition of having significantly more than a few cymbals in one’s setup and playing them in an essentially arbitrary fashion, often characterized by the presence of china and/or splash cymbals*
Certainly, this is not to suggest that employing more than a few cymbals in a setup is always gratuitous, or that utilizing a splash or china cymbal in the proper context and with the proper restraint is undesirable; merely that one must be hyper-conscious that, in the realm of cymbals, a little goes a long way.
The main symptoms of cymbalitis include overuse, overplaying, and arbitrary use of cymbals. Side effects of cymbalitis include watching too many drumming instructional videos, wearing drumming gloves, nausea (for the rest of the band and the audience), shrapnel, and working at Guitar Center at an advanced age.
Overuse of cymbals is the easiest of the three symptoms to diagnose. It is characterized by, simply, the playing of too many cymbals too many times within a given segment of music, resulting in an undesirable cymbal wash that has a tendency to overbalance or overpower the other instruments in the band, including the drums themselves.
Overplaying is essentially playing the cymbals too hard or too loudly or with too much force, resulting in a choked or brittle sound, broken cymbals, and quite often balance issues similar to those associated with overuse. We don’t often think about it, but drums and cymbals are in fact quite different instruments and as such they respond very differently when played. And yet we are required to play them together seamlessly, which requires more consideration than is typically granted.
Arbitrary use of cymbals is trickier to define and a good deal more subjective, but a simple example illustrates the concept well: if a riff goes high-low and the cymbals played in support go low-high, we might have a case of arbitrary cymbal use. The pitch and tone of the cymbals should always be considered and the best one selected for each use. Everything a musician plays should have purpose and meaning.
In the case of china cymbals, their ever-increasing ubiquity in recent years, particularly in many sub-sects of the metal world, has by now rendered them essentially a cliché. Therefore, their use requires an especially careful
deliberation. It’s a regrettable situation, really, because the sound of these instruments can be very appropriate and desirable in the right contexts (and china cymbals were in fact one of the original components of the drum kit), but the chronic over-users have very nearly ruined them for the rest of us.
As for splashes, again, discretion must be observed. Don’t smack a splash just because it’s there—save it for just the right moment and the effect will be much stronger.
Cymbals, when selected carefully and played musically, can add a great deal of range and nuance to a drummer’s playing. But, if care is not taken, cymbalitis can set in swiftly, becoming a debilitating condition from which recovery is nearly impossible. Drum responsibly!
-gs
* I must partially credit Scott Evans of the San Francisco-based band Kowloon Walled City for his most gracious assistance in developing this definition