Parts of a Drum Set

Series Summary

The backbone of any modern band is always the drummer. A band can function without a guitarist, a bassist, or even a singer, but without a drummer most modern music feels severely lacking. Originally used for communication rather than music, drums are the world’s oldest instrument, and their design has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. This set of videos will give you a crash course in playing the drums. Covering both beginner and intermediate topics, our expert is sure to have a tip for drummers of all abilities.

Although unlike many other instruments, anyone can sit down at a drum set and make sounds, being able to truly “play” the drums is a skill that requires a lot of time and practice. In this series our Expert will teach you different methods for improving your drum skills. You will learn techniques for playing the normal parts of a drum kit such as the snare, the toms, the cymbals and the bass drum, and you will also learn how to play some more advanced pieces such as roto toms and the double bass.

Video Transcript

" Hi my name is Chris. Today we are going to discuss the layout of the drum set. First of all you have the Snare drum; then you have your Tom Toms and then you have your Floor Toms. And then here we have our Rotary Toms. Now then, I have, my drum set is made up of quite a few drums. I’m sure a lot of people are more accustom to seeing less drums and that is just because I prefer more drums because I can get more sounds. This does not necessarily mean that I’m a better drummer or I’m not a better drummer or people with less drums are not as good drummers. The reason why this is, is because a lot of the drummers these days like to keep things simple and they use more variations and more techniques with fewer drums. The Snare Drum is the core of the drum set. Usually you will not see a drum set without a Snare Drum. The second most used drum is the base drum; because the base drum is the pulse; it keeps the beat. Then our Toms, they are the drums that are, I’m going to say used third most because they are used more for fills, okay. Then we have your high hat; your high hat is kept for using tempo. Then you have your splash symbol; the splash symbol is usually used for accents in between fills, maybe at the end of a verse. Then we have our crash symbols, okay. I have an eighteen inch crash symbol and then I have a nineteen inch crash symbol, okay. This allows me to get different tones and add different textures within a song. And then we have our ride symbol, our ride symbol is used mainly in choruses; and it is a symbol that also corresponds with the high hat. If you are usually keeping tempo on the high hat, you are also keeping tempo on the ride. So it is either or, or maybe both depending on your style."