How To Tune Toms * Written by Gregory A Hill - Musician, Audio Engineer, and Music Producer. Toms, or Tom-Toms, are the glue that holds our drum kits together. Whether you have two or twelve, each provide a means of movement throughout a musical piece. When tuned correctly, they can be our favourite drums to play. Tuning the Toms can be daunting at first, but once you've grasped the techniques outlined in this tutorial, you will be amazed at how awesome your drums will sound. This tutorial assumes you are putting new drum heads on your tom. If you're using older heads and want to follow the tutorial, just evenly loosen the tension rods on both sides of the drum and remove the rods, hoops, and heads to start anew. I prefer to begin with the resonant or bottom side of the drum. This lets us focus on the fundamental pitch of the drum first, so that's where we'll start. The first step to tuning a tom, or any drum for that matter, is clearing the bearing-edge of debris. Mos...