A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The drummer typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks, and uses their feet to operate hi-hat and bass drum pedals.
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments. In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of idiophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone.
The snare is a percussion instrument that produces a sharp staccato sound when the head is struck with a drum stick, due to the use of a series of stiff wires held under tension against the lower skin. Snare drums are often used in orchestras, concert bands, marching bands, parades, drumlines, drum corps, and more. It is one of the central pieces in a drum set, a collection of percussion instruments designed to be played by a seated drummer and used in many genres of music. Because basic rhythms are very easy to learn to play on a snare drum even for children, the instrument is also suitable for the music education for young children and a rhythm band.
Timpani or kettledrums are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. Thus timpani are an example of kettle drums, also known as vessel drums and semispherical drums, whose body is similar to a section of a sphere whose cut conforms the head. Most modern timpani are pedal timpani and can be tuned quickly and accurately to specific pitches by skilled players through the use of a movable foot-pedal. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet. Timpani evolved from military drums to become a staple of the classical orchestra by the last third of the 18th century. Today, they are used in many types of ensembles, including concert bands, marching bands, orchestras, and even in some rock bands.
Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician and composer. He is best known for his work as the drummer of the English rock band the Police from 1977 to 1986, and again from 2007 to 2008. Before playing with the Police, he played drums with English rock band Curved Air from 1975 to 1976. As a composer, his work includes the films Wall Street (1987), Men at Work (1990), Good Burger (1997), and We Are Your Friends (2015); the television shows The Equalizer (1985–1989), The Amanda Show (1999–2002), and Dead Like Me (2003–2004); and video games such as the Spyro series (1998–present) and Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2001). He has also written various pieces of ballet, opera, and orchestral music.
Timbales or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms and usually tuned much higher, especially for their size. They were developed as an alternative to classical timpani in Cuba in the early 20th century and later spread across Latin America and the United States.
A floor tom or low tom is a double-headed tom-tom drum which usually stands on the floor on three legs. However, they can also be attached to a cymbal stand with a drum clamp, or supported by a rim mount. It is a cylindrical drum without snare wires, and tend to produce a booming, resonant sound which can vary in pitch.
The rototom is a shell-less drum developed by Al Payson and Michael Colgrass that is able to change pitch by rotating its drumhead around a threaded metal ring. Unlike many types of drums, rototoms are designed to have a variable definite pitch leading composers to write specific notes for them as pitched percussion instruments. They are also often used to extend the tom range of a standard drum kit.
In a drum kit, splash cymbals are the smallest accent cymbals. Splash cymbals and china cymbals are the main types of effects cymbals.
The boobam is a percussion instrument of the membranophone family consisting of an array of tubes with membranes stretched on one end, the other end open. The tuning depends partly on the tension on the membrane and partly on the length of the tube.
Tama Drums is a brand of drum kits and hardware manufactured and marketed by the Japanese musical instrument company, Hoshino Gakki. Tama's research and development of products, along with production of its professional and most expensive drums, is done in Seto, Japan, while its hardware and less expensive drums are manufactured in Guangzhou, China. Hoshino has several offices around the world for marketing and wholesale distribution. Drums destined for the U.S. market are assembled and stocked at Hoshino (U.S.A.) in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. The U.S. subsidiary also contributes to Tama's market research and development.
Pearl Musical Instrument Company, simply known as Pearl, is a multinational corporation based in Japan with a wide range of products, predominantly percussion instruments.
Vistalite drums were a line of acrylic drums produced by the Ludwig Drum company, introduced in 1972. The name Vistalite refers to the translucent plastic that the shells were made out of. Vistalite and acrylic offered a synthetic alternative to wood shells and were popularized by rock drummer John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.
Meinl Percussion is a manufacturer of percussion instruments based in Gutenstetten, Germany. The company’s cymbal production is one of the "big four" manufacturers of cymbals, along with Zildjian, Sabian, and Paiste.
Thomas Lang is an Austrian drummer. He is the founding member of the Los Angeles-based progressive/avant garde metal band stOrk and is known for his international session work on a wide variety of genres such as rock, pop, jazz, and heavy metal with artists such as Robert Fripp, and Sugababes, among many others.
A gong bass drum is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a type of drum that uses a single large drumhead in order to create a loud, resonant sound when struck. The head can be tuned as loose as possible to avoid any sense of pitch in the sound, or tensioned more tightly to produce timpani-like tones.
ddrum is an American based Swedish company, currently a division of Armadillo Enterprises, Inc. that manufactures acoustic drum sets, electronic drum sets, and Electronic Triggers.
Drum hardware is the set of parts of a drum or drum kit that are used to tension, position, and otherwise support the instruments themselves.
A tom drum is a cylindrical drum with no snares, named from the Anglo-Indian and Sinhala language. It was added to the drum kit in the early part of the 20th century. Most toms range in size between 6 and 20 inches in diameter, though floor toms can go as large as 24 inches (61 cm).
A single home made octoban
Daniel Löble with 10 Pearl Quarter Toms
