# A few millimetres are the whole range of a hi-hat

> A hi-hat drawn closed and open, side by side, shows that the gap between the two states is the entire expressive range of the instrument.

August 19, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/hi-hat-closed-and-open

Two drawings of the same pair of cymbals, side elevation, side by side. On the left the edges
touch. On the right there's a gap between them, drawn to scale.

The whole instrument lives in that gap, and it's a few millimetres wide.

## What is this shirt actually showing?

Two states of one object, not two objects.

The stand and the rod appear in both drawings because they're the same rig throughout — what
changes is the distance between the top cymbal and the bottom one, from touching to open. A
drummer's left foot sets that distance continuously, but the print only has room to show two
positions, so it shows the two extremes and leaves the middle to be understood.

## Why does a gap this small carry the whole range?

Because everything a hi-hat does happens in the distance between the two states, not at either end
of it.

Closed, the top cymbal can't move against the bottom one and the stick produces a short, dry tick.
Open, the two cymbals are free to ring against each other and the stick produces a decay closer to
[a struck drum's own](/stories/waveform-single-hit) than to a tick. Every setting between
those two — a quarter open, barely cracked — is a different amount of that ring let through, which
is why a foot that never fully closes or fully opens is doing more work than one that just stamps
the pedal.

## Why draw it in side elevation rather than looking down on it?

Because side elevation is the only angle where the gap is visible as a gap.

Looked at from above, a closed hi-hat and an open one are almost the same shape — two circles, one
slightly larger than the other, overlapping. The distance that actually matters is invisible from
that angle. Turn the pair on its side and the gap becomes a measurable space between two lines,
which is the one piece of information the whole design exists to carry.

## Can a real cymbal maker's design go on a shirt like this?

A maker's own model name and the specific proportions of their cymbal are theirs, and licensable if
a particular pair is the point of the shirt.

The mechanism drawn here — two circles, a rod, a variable gap — belongs to nobody, because it
describes how any hi-hat works rather than one maker's version of it. That's also why the pair on
this shirt carries no maker's name: the drawing is making an argument about distance, not about
whose cymbals are pictured.

## Does this work for other parts of a kit?

Anything with a continuously adjustable setting that a player operates by feel rather than by
looking at a number has the same shape available to it.

[A drum key tightening opposite lugs](/stories/drum-key-and-lugs) is a different kind of
adjustment — discrete, done before playing rather than during it — but it's the same instinct: draw
the part of the kit that a player controls without watching, because that's the part most people
have never actually seen drawn. A drummer sitting inside
[an ensemble rather than out front](/stories/choir-and-orchestra-shirts) is making exactly
this kind of continuous, unwatched adjustment the whole time everyone else is reading music off a
stand.

## Isn't drawing two nearly identical cymbals a bit repetitive?

Only if the two drawings were meant to look different. They're meant to look almost the same, with
one measurement changed, because that's the honest description of what's happening.

A single drawing of an open hi-hat would just be a hat that happens to be open — nothing about it
would tell you that closed is also a state the object has. The repetition is doing the explaining;
without it, the gap has nothing to be a gap between.

## Does it print well?

Yes — two flat outline drawings with a shared baseline are close to ideal artwork.

Charcoal for both cymbal pairs keeps the two drawings reading as one instrument rather than two
separate ones, with the brass gold reserved for the rod and stand so the eye can track the one
element that's identical in both frames. Sand is a ground that doesn't fight either ink.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the two states at [JustOG](/) — how wide the gap is, which drawing goes left, and what
the stand looks like. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment,
and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Two circles a few millimetres apart, and a whole instrument fits in the distance between them.