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The first music was beaten out on a drum and it has been the basic form of making a sound ever since. Babies, when given a stick will try and hit something with it, usually anything that will make a sound. So it is not surprising that beating a drum comes naturally. Before I get letters, keeping time and creating a rhythm is something else!
Playing drums, as with all music can
take many forms, from Marching bands to orchestral through
to heavy rock bands.
As we have limited space available I propose to go down the centre and concentrate on the basic drum kit.
Playing drums unfortunately tends to take up room and can be a shade on the noisy side so I can understand parents being apprehensive when confronted with a child who wants to play the drums. But there are a few options that will make it less daunting.
You can buy practice kits, which consist of a series of rubber pads set up in the same position as a real drum kit, which are very quiet when hit but are not very rewarding to play. You can dampen the sound of a normal kit by either putting felt pads on the skins or draping cloths over the drums and putting a damper on the bass drum striker.
So now that the sound problem is kind of solved its time to get a kit. Drum kits are one of the few instruments that can be added to as the player becomes more competent and or more funds become available.
You can start real basic with a kit of Bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat and one cymbal although you would probably like to add a small tom-tom and a floor
tom-tom and a second cymbal giving
you a crash and ride (explained later).
You can buy a new cheap kit for under £400 although a better quality, second hand kit would be a better buy in the long term if you are not too bothered about colour.
 Drums come in various sizes, base drums in particular vary in both diameter and depth so the choice is yours remembering that the deeper the drum the deeper the tone.
Most people when they take up drumming start by playing along to CD’s and then look out to join a band, be it pop or Jazz, so it is important when choosing your kit what type of music you intend to play, it is not much use buying a huge double bass drum kit with 6 tom-toms if you intend playing modern jazz in small bars and clubs, likewise a small lightweight kit would be out of place in a Deep Purple tribute band.
Cymbals: The choice is almost endless and so is the cost.
Hi-hats tend to be a pair of 14” cymbals although 13” and 15” are not uncommon.
Ride cymbals (the cymbal used to help create the rhythm) can be 18” to 24” and crash cymbals (cymbals used to accentuate the music) can be as small as 8” and normally up to 24” and are thicker than the ride cymbals.
You will need sticks and brushes, sticks come in different thickness, the thicker the stick the heavier the sound. Brushes on the other hand are mostly used for dance band and jazz styles of music.
Drums make their sound by a skin stretched
over a round sound box being hit with a wooden stick.
Modern skins are made from a form of nylon stretched on a hoop that is then pulled under tension by clamps.
By tightening or loosening the clamps alters the note of the drum when hit this is tuning the kit so you can alter each drum to sound how you want. This is done by a special key that you will need when you purchase your drums.
The snare drum gets its name from the thin rows of curly wire that run over the bottom skin of the snare drum, these too can be adjusted to give you the amount of ‘buzz’ that you like and by flipping off the snare you have another tom-tom.
The hi-Hat is basically a hollow cymbal stand with an upside down cymbal attached to it with a rod going up the inside with a right way up cymbal attached to the top.
The top cymbal is brought into contact with bottom cymbal by a foot pedal on a strong spring so when the pedal is pressed the cymbals clash together and become ‘closed’, by keeping your foot on the pedal you get a muted sound when struck with a stick.
By pressing the pedal up and down in time it creates a rhythm.
Now we have our kit how do we learn?
Once again there are many books on the market from simple ‘play as you learn’ to the full science of drumming.
Yellow pages or the local paper will give you local drum tutors and enquire at your school, they may have a visiting tutor of an evening.
Once you have become used to your kit and want to progress, look in the music magazines for a drum clinic, these are well worth visiting. A clinic is where a professional drummer will play and give pointers for you to improve your technique.
Electric kits are similar to a practice kit but are more sophisticated and need an amplifier to boost the sound but this does allow you to play quiet and also you can play some awesome sounds but kits are expensive and you don’t see many second hand.
The ultimate is to join a band and you will find vacancies up on a board in most music shops asking for drummers, they go from bands that just get together for fun, play semi-professional or want to make recordings.
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