48 Fun Facts About Drums

In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification of instruments, what type of instrument is a drum?

A membranophone. The system sorts instruments by what vibrates: a drum sounds through its stretched membrane, while a cymbal, whose whole body rings, counts as an idiophone.

Which Nirvana drummer went on to front Foo Fighters as singer and guitarist?

Dave Grohl. Foo Fighters began as his one-man project: in October 1994 he recorded the debut album in about a week, playing nearly every instrument himself.

On modern drums, the head is held on by a rim tightened by screws known as what?

Tension rods. Each one screws into a lug on the shell, and turning them tightens or slackens the head, which is how a drum is tuned.

Drums made with the skin of which animal have been found at Neolithic sites in China?

Alligator. The earliest such drums come from Dawenkou culture sites in eastern China, where alligators probably then lived along the coast, with the hide stretched over a wooden frame.

The ornate bronze Dong Son drums were made by a Bronze Age culture in which modern country?

Vietnam. The Dong Son people of the Red River region were seafarers who traded across Southeast Asia, which is why their bronze drums have turned up as far away as eastern Indonesia.

What do the talking drums of Africa imitate in order to communicate over distance?

The tone patterns of speech. A drummer bends the pitch by squeezing the cords between the two heads, copying the rise and fall of words in tonal languages such as Yoruba.

In which country did the drum called the karyenda become a symbol of royal power?

Burundi. The karyenda sat on the national flag at independence in 1962, and when the monarchy was overthrown in 1966 the drum was removed.

Which primates have been shown to drum rhythmically on objects as a form of communication?

Macaque monkeys. Scans found that their brains handle drumming sounds and calls in overlapping regions, hinting that drumming grew out of social communication.

What was the drum kit called in its early decades, a name some drummers still use?

A trap set. 'Traps' were the extras around the drums, such as cowbells, woodblocks and whistles, and by 1903 a 'trap drummer' was someone who played a drum and several of them at once.

The modern drum kit took shape among early jazz drummers in which city?

New Orleans. Its early jazz drummers gathered a marching band's separate drums around one seat and added cymbals, cowbells and woodblocks, so a single player could do the work of several.

Which brothers founded a company in 1909 and patented the first commercially successful bass drum pedal?

William and Theobald Ludwig. Their Chicago drum shop grew out of William's pedal design, but Theobald died in the 1918 flu epidemic and William carried the firm on alone.

Early jazz drummer Baby Dodds played Mississippi riverboats around 1919 alongside which teenage cornet player?

Louis Armstrong. Both men played in Fate Marable's riverboat band until 1921, and by 1923 they were making records together in King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

Which part of a kit began as the foot-operated 'low-boy'?

Hi-hat. Around 1926 a taller stand lifted the low-boy's two cymbals to hand height, so drummers could play them with sticks as well as the foot.

What technological change at the end of the 1920s put many theatre drummers out of work?

Films with recorded sound. Cinema drummers had supplied live sound effects for silent pictures, and when prerecorded soundtracks took over, the musicians' union ran newspaper adverts in protest.

Which drum in a kit gets its sharp crack from metal wires stretched across its bottom head?

The snare. Hitting the top head makes the wires rattle against the bottom one, and a lever on the shell can drop them away to silence the buzz.

In a kit, the bass drum is commonly known by what other name?

The kick. Orchestral players beat the bass drum by hand, but in a kit it is struck by a pedal-driven beater, hence the nickname.

Which drums are the most numerous in most kits and carry the bulk of fills and solos?

Tom-toms. Early kit toms were 'Chinese' drums whose pigskin heads were tacked to the shell, so they could not be tuned as modern ones can.

Which long, narrow, tube-shaped drums extend a kit's range upward in pitch?

Octobans. Tama makes them in eight lengths, all the same narrow width, so each drum's pitch is set by how long its tube is.

What is the most common full-size drum kit configuration across pop, rock and jazz fusion?

The five-piece kit. Kits are named by counting only the drums, so the cymbals and other percussion come on top of the five.

Which stick grip, with an underhand left hand, came from side drums slung at an angle?

Traditional grip. Early jazz drummers came out of marching bands and kept the grip, which is why it is still seen more in jazz than in rock.

Which cymbal-making family firm has been in business since 1623?

Zildjian. The firm began in Constantinople, and a feud between two brothers of the family later led Robert Zildjian to leave and start making rival Sabian cymbals in 1981.

Which large cymbal does a drummer chiefly use to keep a steady rhythm pattern going?

The ride. In the 1940s bebop drummer Kenny Clarke moved timekeeping up to it, which freed the bass drum for the surprise accents known as 'dropping bombs'.

Which drummer for The Who was notorious for smashing his kit on stage?

Keith Moon. On American television in 1967 he had a stagehand load gunpowder into his bass drum for the finale of 'My Generation', and far more went in than planned.

What word does 'cymbal' ultimately come from?

Greek kymbē, meaning cup or bowl. It passed through Latin cymbalum, the same word that later gave English 'chime'.

Drumsticks are most commonly turned from which wood?

Hickory. The wood is hard, dense and shock-resistant, the same mix that makes it a favourite for tool handles.

What did drummers begin using in the 1910s as a quieter alternative to sticks?

Wire brushes. Sticks could overpower the other instruments in a band, so drummers swapped to brushes, a sound that became a hallmark of soft jazz playing.

What is a rimshot?

Striking the head and rim together with one stick. The 'ba-dum-tss' played after a joke is often called a rimshot too, but percussionists know that phrase as a sting.

Which small medieval drum, played alongside a pipe, is the ancestor of the modern side drum?

The tabor. One musician played both at once, fingering a three-hole pipe with one hand while beating the tabor with a stick in the other.

What is another common name for timpani?

Kettledrums. The name comes from their shape, a skin stretched over a metal bowl, and paired with trumpets they long served as emblems of royal power.

How are most modern timpani tuned quickly to precise pitches?

With a foot pedal. It tightens or slackens the whole head at once, where older timpani had a ring of hand screws to turn one by one.

In the mid-15th century, Hungarian envoys arrived at the French court with large timpani carried on what?

Horseback. The big paired drums had reached Europe from the Ottoman Turks by way of Hungary, and mounted drummers and trumpeters went on to become the pride of the cavalry.

The djembe is a rope-tuned goblet drum from which region?

West Africa. The djembe was little known elsewhere until Les Ballets Africains, the troupe founded by Guinea's Fodéba Keïta, took it on tour through Europe in the 1950s.

Which Japanese word, which at home means any drum, is used abroad for thunderous ensemble drumming?

Taiko. The ensemble style, called kumi-daiko in Japan, dates only from 1951, when jazz-trained drummer Daihachi Oguchi arranged an old piece for a whole group of drums.

Flamenco's cajón, a wooden box drum the player sits on, was borrowed from which country?

Peru. Flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía met the Afro-Peruvian box through percussionist Caitro Soto on a visit in the late 1970s and took it home to Spain, where he worked it into his own music.

The tabla has been the principal percussion instrument of which musical tradition since the 18th century?

Hindustani classical music. Western audiences met the tabla in the 1960s through Alla Rakha, the virtuoso who accompanied sitarist Ravi Shankar on stage.

Which Phil Collins hit is famous for the thunderous drum break that crashes in near its end?

In the Air Tonight. Its booming 'gated reverb' drum sound, shaped with engineer Hugh Padgham, became one of the signature effects of 1980s pop and rock.

What are the two drums of a pair of bongos called in Spanish?

Hembra (female) and macho (male). It is the larger, deeper drum that is called the female, and the smaller, higher one the male.

Which 2014 film follows a young jazz drummer pushed to breaking point by a ruthless conservatory teacher?

Whiplash. The title comes from a Hank Levy big-band chart, the piece on which the student first loses the tempo and has a chair hurled at him.

Which tall, barrel-shaped Cuban hand drums drive the rhythm of rumba?

Congas. They are built from staves like a barrel, and in rumba the high quinto takes the lead while the two lower drums hold the pattern.

The bodhrán, the Irish frame drum, is traditionally headed with the skin of which animal?

Goat. The player's free hand presses the inside of the goatskin to change its pitch, while the other strikes it with a short stick called a tipper.

The steelpan is the national instrument of which country?

Trinidad and Tobago. After African percussion was banned from Carnival in the 1880s, players switched to bamboo sticks and then to metal pans and lids, the forerunners of the steelpan.

What are full-size steelpans traditionally made from?

55-gallon oil drums. The barrels were left over from the islands' oil industry, and before them bands had made do with frying pans and dustbin lids.

Which body declared 11 August World Steelpan Day in 2023?

UN General Assembly. Its resolution said the steelpan promotes inclusive societies, sustainable communities and the creative economy, and invited the world to mark the day each year.

Which technique sustains a drum's sound by rubbing the head?

A thumb roll. On a tambourine the thumb is dragged around the skin so that it judders and sets the jingles rattling, and players moisten it or rub on beeswax to add friction.

What did ancient Chinese armies use their drums for?

Morale, marching pace and orders. At Changshao in 684 BC, Lu's adviser Cao Gui waited until Qi had drummed three times, saying courage peaks at the first beat and is spent by the third.

Which cymbals are usually the kit's strongest accent markers, hit for climaxes and vocal entries?

Crash. It gives a loud, sharp burst that is used for occasional accents, though in an orchestra a player may roll soft mallets on a suspended one to build a slow swell.

Which 1970s pop star began as a group's drummer before stepping out front to sing?

Karen Carpenter. She sang the Carpenters' early hits from behind her kit until her brother and their manager coaxed her out front, yet she always thought of herself as a 'drummer who sang'.

Which standard, agreed by rival makers in 1983, lets an electronic drum kit trigger another maker's sounds?

MIDI. Roland's founder and a Californian synth designer pushed their rivals to share one format, then proved it at a 1983 trade show by cabling a Sequential synth to a Roland.