Where Does a Ride Cymbal Go?
One of the nice things about drum sets is that you don’t have to set yours up exactly like everyone else’s. You can customize your drum setup, which includes deciding where your ride cymbal goes. There is no real right place for it, despite what some people say—you want instead to put your ride cymbal in the most comfortable place for you.Generally, your ride cymbal goes to your right, and you place it in between and slightly behind your floor tom and your second tom. If you’re left-handed, of course, you would place it on the left. This is so that your dominant hand can hit the ride cymbal when needed. However, you don’t always have to place your ride cymbal here. Instead, you can put it under your crash cymbal or between your first and second toms. In fact, you can really place your ride cymbal anywhere it’s within striking distance of your hand…it doesn’t even have to be your dominant hand, either, although most people do use their dominate hand to hit the ride cymbal.
Overall, the most important thing about placing your ride cymbal is to put it somewhere that is comfortable to you. You may need to experiment a bit to discover where this position is. Try different things, especially if you find that you don’t like having your ride cymbal in a certain position. As long as you can keep your ride cymbal out of the way of other items and hit it when you need to, you’ll be fine. If you find this isn’t the case or that you have to reach or bend your arm in an uncomfortable way, you should think about moving your ride cymbal to a different area of your drum kit.
