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The Method of Snare Drum Analysis: by Aundre Wesley
The Method of Snare Drum Analysis: by Aundre Wesley
The Method of Snare Drum Analysis: by Aundre Wesley
The Method of
Snare Drum
Analysis
By Aundre Wesley
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Sanford Moeller:
“The moving picture to educate the eye and the
phonograph to educate the ear.”
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Purpose
To start, music is a uniquely human phenomenon. There are many elements to music as
well. One of the components that can be studied quantitatively is the technical aspect of snare
drumming through analysis of body and stick displacement along with analysis of the sound of
the snare drum produced by this motion. The goal of this analysis is to delineate most of what
can be quantified in the analysis of snare drumming while leaving other aspects of music and
The simplest frame of understanding this mode of thinking is the concept of the human
body as a composition of geometric shapes that have one set configuration for each point in
space. These different configurations over time produce the sound of a snare drum; for a snare
drum cannot play itself. This means, in theory, one can effect the quality and repetitiveness of
one’s snare drum by altering or fixing the motions one produces before and after the strike of
the drum. The system of technical analysis that is presented here is a transcription of my
personal technique and the resulting sound from each strike. This transcription system has a
framework from motion capture data and wave form analysis, but can be used with a simple
camera phone. What I am presenting here is the framework of analysis based on human
anatomy and physiology, the tip of the stick acting as a projectile, the continuance of a straight
line theory, and sequencing of joints based on maximum and minimum values of the stick,
elbow, and wrist. This can be done by frame by frame analysis of the videos taken and
In the field of Linguistics, the study of speech sounds through different configurations
of the respiratory system is known as Phonetics. For every sound found in human speech, there
is one configuration of the human body in respects to speech production. In other words, to
produce different sounds one must fix the the mouth and lungs in a manner which have
variance. There have been many innovations in the study of Phonetics through experiments
involving MRI scans of a speaker, or human subject, producing prescribed utterances which
then could be used to illustrate how the mouth is adjusting to produce certain sounds. Also, the
same data is typically analyzed by its visual wave form representation and compared to the
MRI scans. This method of analysis gives insight into how sound and motion in speech are
related to each other, and could provide evidence for the claim that the vocal tract (more
importantly the mouth, tongue, and glottis) manipulates the air from the lungs to produce the
This same approach is used in the proposed analysis of snare drumming technique. Like
the study of Phonetics, this method makes certain claims: the body has one set configuration
for every point in space, the snare drum sound in performance is a direct result of the motion
before and after the strike of the drum, the snare drummer’s motion can fit inside of a cube, the
data taken from the motion capture system can be used as a framework to analyze any video of
motion. In the analysis of snare drumming, a particular technique is analyzed in this document.
The Moeller technique which is named after Sanford Moeller is the technique that is analyzed.
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The method of analysis builds off of Sanford Moeller’s book: The Moeller Book, which
takes still camera frames of Sanford Moeller demonstrating the technique in reverse. This was
extremely beneficial for people who couldn’t learn from Sanford Moeller directly and the
described in the Moeller Book). The Moeller Book describes the Civil War Era style of
drumming with precision by detailing the grip of both hands, the full stroke (or single stroke),
The next analysis of the Moeller technique which improved on Moeller’s approach to
technical analysis was done most recently by Jojo Mayer in his Secret Weapons for the Modern
Drummer DVD, where Jojo Mayer demonstrated a method of learning the technique that
Sanford Moeller first demonstrated in 1925. Jojo Mayer’s DVD is more of an instructional
DVD on the Moeller Technique. He explains how to develop the motion with multiple camera
angles, a computer generated model, and demonstrations of drum set application of the Moeller
Technique as well as some fusion ideas like: The Moeller-Mayer stroke, extensive finger
The method of analysis presented in this document makes an improvement on the two
previously mentioned methods by introducing the Phonetic component to the motion capture
analysis. By comparing the motion capture data to the resulting sound wave, I can reverse
engineer the calibration machine and apply that method to any video involving snare
drumming. I can also compare the sound the mouth makes imitating the drum and compare.
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The Method
The experiment conducted in the primate locomotion lab at UT Austin utilized a motion capture system
and a camera phone to sync sound with motion. This approach to technique analysis was used to
provide evidence of how an interpretation of the Moeller stroke can be represented by displacement
over time. The purpose of the data presented here is to provide a framework for technical analysis of
any snare drumming video without the motion capture technology. However, snare drumming technique
can theoretically be placed inside of a cube and annotated through hand drawn illustrations with
precision based on set configurations of human anatomy, analysis of resulting sound wave production,
the path of the stick analyzed as a projectile, and geometrically based equations.
The Method
The selections of frames are based off of maximum and minimum values of displacements over
one sequence of the full stroke which follows a decay rate algorithm. These frames cube
drawings were reconstructed by taking the X, Y, and Z values of the shoulder, elbow and wrist
separately, and plotting each value on a separate number line. Then, a cube was constructed to
representation of movement based off of the values given in graphical data. I am asserting that
hand-drawn illustrations provide the best way for expressing movement over time in the
absence of a video or instructor. Here are the data for shoulder, elbow and wrist (resultant
Conclusion
The framework presented can be used to analyze any motion performed by a human.
Regardless of the context, human motion can be illustrated based on human anatomy and its
relative positions in movement over time. The method presented is not necessarily new, but it is
an improvement on the analysis of snare drum technique expressed by Sanford Moeller and
Jojo Mayer.
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Works Cited
For the works of Sanford Moeller: The Moeller Book: The Art of Snare Drumming (1925)
For the works of Jojo Mayer: Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer (DVD 2007)