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I've heard it said hundreds of times that hitting a crash cymbal with a "glancing blow", rather than straight on, will extend its life and help prevent it from cracking.

Has anyone actually tested this, though? It's pretty easy to explain why glancing blows might help, and it's intuitive that it should help, but have any controlled tests been done to compare the lifespan of cymbals when either of these two techniques is used?

Edward
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    I want this to be a Mythbusters episode… – Andy Bonner Oct 12 '21 at 01:29
  • I've found that playing in reasonably volumed bands means they last forever... – Tim Oct 12 '21 at 06:21
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    Hiding them away in their cases & never using them prolongs their life too. More seriously, I've known drummers who can break anything inside 5 minutes & others who have gear that lasts a lifetime. Some people just 'happen' to things. My own cymbals are 30 years old now [ride is much, much older] & look like when I bought them. – Tetsujin Oct 12 '21 at 06:28
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    I was taught to use this technique to make the cymbal **sound** better, which it definitely does. If it also lasts longer then I’d say this is definitely the way to play. Smashing straight through the cymbal produces a one-dimensional sound in my experience. – Todd Wilcox Oct 12 '21 at 11:33
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    As far as "happening" to things. When I started drumming, I broke cymbals all the time. After the first 5 years, I haven't broken one cymbal. Almost 40 years later, still no cracks. And I've never glanced my hits. – Jason P Sallinger Oct 12 '21 at 11:42
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    Whether it preserves the cymbal life, won't it produce a different sound? I wonder if the question "how hard a straight it is safe for the cymbal but produces the desired sound?" would be more to the point. And, FWIW, I've wondered this myself. – Michael Curtis Oct 14 '21 at 14:28
  • I feel that a non-glancing blow deadens the sound and you lose a lot of resonance. My aesthetic prefers an open, resonant sound. In terms of life expectancy, it makes sense to me that allowing the instrument to resonate more, you'd be stressing the instrument less. It could be interesting to look at this from the point of view of the study of acoustics. If you're not trained in higher math, you might still get something out of reading a book about mathematical modeling. You'd get more out of it by understanding the equations, but even without them hopefully you'd still some insight.. – aparente001 Mar 10 '22 at 05:45
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    Hence you could ask at Physics. – aparente001 Mar 10 '22 at 05:46
  • As you know, how you strike the symbol makes all the difference in the sound. If you hold the stick stiff you get an different sound than if you hold the stick loosely. It is acoustic waves runing through the stick and the cymbol that make the sound. If the cymbol is hit very hard, it is the stress waves that start from the struck point that run arrond the metal, reflect off each other, and return as tensile waves, that ultimately can cause the cymbol to fracture. – Fred Aug 07 '22 at 15:54

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This is a classic ballsitics impact (physics) problem. The glancing blow reduces the peak sress but increases the time of contact between the drum stick and the cymbal. Thus the impulse give to the cymbal (total deflection) can be about the same. The longer time and reduced stress however can change resonance frequencies induced in the cymbal therefore in this case produce a deadening effect. The extended life of the cymbal would be related to the lower stress associated with the glancing blow.

Fred
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