DRUMMER CAFE

To a certain degree, it's a matter of of comfort. However, it's good to start with an ergonomic approach - i.e. use your body to tell you where to put it.

Try sitting on your stool, back straight, arms dangling loosely at your sides. With your palms facing the floor, bend your elbows until your forearms are parallel to the floor. Still with your palms facing down, let your hands hang loosely at the end of your forearms. Adjust your snare drum so it meets with your fingertips. It should be a few inches below your belly button. Somewhere between there and your bellybutton is a good area to start in. Lower, and you'll either need to break your posture and slouch, hit your legs every time you play a rimshot, and/or suffer with less rebound. Higher, and you're not getting the full use of the weight and range of motion of your forearm for your strokes.

After that, experiment. Start with it flat and see how that feels. Later, you can try angling the drum up and toward you like Gadd, or down and away like Eric Harland, but the rim of the drum closest to you should be somewhere in that 4" range. If you're playing traditional grip then you may want to angle the drum a little to compensate.

For pictures, go to a site like Drummerworld.com and check out pictures of great players. You'll see there is an almost universal placement of the snare drum in that 4" range from the bellybutton to the area just above your private parts.