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JOEL SIEGEL: Another aspect of the hi-hat and this is a very important one--you're going
to find it a lot, especially in rock, pop music. This is your kinda half-open; you can
call it the sizzle sound. There are a lot of different ways to name it and think about
it, but there's this sound. Now, you can hear what's happening as I'm striking this top
hi-hat--in this case the side--and the resonance of the cymbal is making it interact with the
cymbal on the bottom. And this is where the color--the real colors of the cymbals will
shine through where they combine to give you this continuous wash. So if you're trying
to build intensity in the music that's loud, you're kind of jacking up the dynamics, this
is where this kind of stroke is going to come into play. Part of it is what your foot is
doing. So what I'm going to show you is, as I'm playing, you can see the stick and then
you'll go down and see where the foot is versus where it is when it's closed.
You can see that there's not a huge difference, visually, in where my foot is positioned when
the hi-hat is closed and when you get that half-open sound. It's a lot--it's going to
be a lot of kind of a pressure aspect. As you develop familiarity with your hi-hat and
as you get comfortable with it, you'll be able to start to feel where that kind of little
sweet spot is, where you get that nice extended sound out of the cymbals.